Illness

Just as author Tom Segev relates that Ben-Gurion increasingly harked back to the episodes that shaped him in his earlier life, so too are these episodes more vivid to us than later ones. This would be fine and even impressive as a literary gambit, having the reader feel about Ben-Gurion’s life the way Ben-Gurion himself did, but at least for this reader it was somewhat disappointing in that it’s the later events ⁠— founding and leading the State of Israel ⁠— that we are reading for. But again, this too may be a literary achievement, suggesting that for the subject of this biography, it was the younger man’s experiences that were important ⁠— and that by extension this is the case for all lives. But I’m not sure that’s accurate; surely the ambitious younger Ben-Gurion would have been overjoyed at the eventual achievements of his later self.

It’s a strange complaint to make, but I feel this book wasn’t long enough; each of the many episodes, particularly the later more historic ones, I felt could have withstood more detail.

I was pleased to learn of Ben-Gurion’s erratic behavior and attitude towards his family, and of his penchant for travel and mild but somewhat constant womanizing, and his growing intellectualism alongside faddishness. Segev concludes that Ben-Gurion’s philosophical disposition is basically that of Anglo-American liberal; all to the good. Almost. The implication is that this temperate poise made him the wise indispensable man, but also open him to more exciting dead-end intellectual enthusiasms.

Friendships, sex, religious relations, despair ⁠— the richness of the subject matter’s life encourages in the reader a life in politics as it’s a life in full.

The great Reacher TV series led me to try a Kindle sample, which read well. Feeling in safe hands, I searched the local public library for whichever they had in stock. They had three, and I picked Blue Moon. I began with enjoyment, reflecting on the fictional dream created as we move from little setpiece to little setpiece (a Greyhound bus, a bar, a rundown suburban home). I so enjoy that imaginative experience of fun fiction and love inducing it in others. But after a while this story becones preposterous. The waitress he meets turns out to be a superwoman, and her friends become Reacher’s special forces army as the book climaxes with attacks on the gangsters’ lairs, the body count like that of a one-person shooter. It ends up being… daft, so I think that’s it for me.

The invaluable Atul Gawande crafts a sensible, anecdote-rich picture of the current state of elder care.

He begins by telling the somewhat idyllic-sounding tale of how his own grandfather lived into old age back in India, contrasting this with the increasingly institutionalized way that aging is handled in more modern society. Surprisingly, he points out that anyone who can abandon this multi-generational way of living does so ⁠— it’s no paradise.

Gawande is always a deft, humane companion, one of our great medical writers, and if nothing else, the various ways he recounts people’s health failing and ultimately dying brings to the fore what we should keep in mind.

He wants people to be more mindful, prepared and aware of the limits of medicine, which he believes will make them less likely to make the mistake of over-treating, noting a number of times that relatives remain depressed and traumatized by a loved-one’s death much longer when they have chosen to keep them alive using invasive treatments.

He also notes his new understanding of hospice treatment, not that is no treatment, but that the goal of life duration stops being the be-all-and-end-all.

I don’t particularly want to revisit this well-structured book, but it’s a necessary ordeal.

Engagingly written albeit disappointingly somewhat thin, the useful angle here is how Apple differs from conventional wisdom.

Secrecy, even internally, is paramount; it helps alleviate internal politics and keep people focused. There is little internal promotion, taking seriously the Peter Principle. Unlike the rest of Silicon Valley, perks are minimal; working at Apple is the perk.

A product of its time (2012) and of the author’s lack of access, the book is marred at the end by pessimistic obsession with Apple’s viability post-Jobs, but is nonetheless ultimately worth reading because it does convey an impression of what Apple is like.

INSIDE APPLE

Well I was expecting more from this book; beginning it, I was very pleased at how engagingly written it is, after the last book by the BPM-D people. I was looking for information about the Apple process, but there wasn’t much detail about the ANPP than what I’d seen in the blurbs, which was a bit disappointing.

Nonetheless, one thing I did pick up that is important regarding process, even if it’s higher-level and more perhaps a value than a process, is secrecy. He does a good job of laying that out, the uniqueness and strangeness and centrality of it.

But you can tell he had little access. Nobody has told him how it came about, if this is a Jobs thing, if’s been organic or deliberate.

As the author notes, it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, and indeed in the business blah-blah of the BPM-D guys. There is no transparency, and yet the BPM-D guys extoll transparency as the main virtue of process.

Nobody I’ve come across goes into much detail in squaring this circle. But as I write this it seems perhaps obvious. First, what do we really mean by transparency? On one hand, he points out that the human mind has a hard time with secrecy. On the other, it seems impractical and impossible that everybody knows everything. Perhaps transparency is shorthand for managed transparency, ie, each person can access the information she or he needs to know. Well, to refine further, transparency probably also means a propensity towards sharing more rather than less information; tell all unless proscribed, rather than tell nothing unless prescribed.

The book proposes at least one good reason for opacity: suppression of fiefdoms, since nobody knows what anybody else is doing and can’t fight over turf they don’t know about. That is somewhat persuasive. It probably also requires fear and respect of your superiors, that you don’t question their judgment if you are not selected to be involved in some new skunkworks.

This is process, of course, just a different process.

There are a couple of other interesting contrarian uniquenesses. There is apparently no culture of promotion, people stay pretty much where they are initially hired. The author marvels at this, wondering whether perhaps it isn’t a good thing, avoiding the Peter Principle. And maybe too helping avoiding politics: the things you fight over aren’t promotions but hot or not-hot projects.

And it is the precise opposite of the foosball culture; it is fulfilling, not fun. The rewards are intrinsic to the work: seeing people choose products you worked on. This of course is how it should be. Though few businesses can realize it.

It would have been wonderful to get more insight into how much company and process design Steve Jobs thought about; perhaps it was something he was able to set and forget, moving on to think about the products set to flow through the system, which of course is what the system was intended for.

It also seems that there is not too much emphasis on process ⁠— nor should there be really, it becomes the shape of the environment in which you work. But Apple seems to be inherently agile, valueing people over process.

How amazing that must be, surrounded by people whom you have faith are probably at least as amazing as you are, and you believe you are pretty amazing yourself.

The book is marred towards the end by a repetitive focus on how the company is going to do without Steve Jobs. This discussion goes nowhere; rather, the question is posed again and again. And suddenly we are shown that the author is actually a bit of a hater, jumping on trivialities to presume things will tank. It’s a rather ugly end to the book and shows the smallness of thinking of most people, even elite tech journalists like this one. Could he not form an opinion of this central question of whether Apple would succeed?

It would also have been great to get a bit of a glimpse of the operations mind of Tim Cook, some example of how one product in modern Apple has gone from start to finish. How valuable would that be? But nothing.

And more amazingness. Steve Jobs never seemed to want for anything ⁠— you pick up the phone and call anyone. You acquire the best people to build the things you think should be built. This sense of, not entitlement exactly, more a sense of right, a confidence, permeates the company. You work with Apple, you do things the Apple way, because they have no reason to believe it is not the best way. And if it is not the best way, though the chances are it is, they will pivot.

This sense of right must be earned to be authentic; that seems to be an invisible hand woven into the human soul. Do the work ⁠— whatever that means ⁠— and earn the rights.

And what can work mean? What was Steve Jobs’ work? Deciding, it seems, for the most part. Staying abreast. Staying hungry.

How much of our human work is deciding? What informs decisions? Self-respect. Self-belief. Immersion.

 ⁠— 

Internal let alone external secrecy is a management method. It prevents politics, keeps people focused on their work, helps things not get leaked.

The place is not fun. It is fulfilling. People work hard and don’t get promoted. the money is normal. the reward is the geek’s reward: seeing people choose your product cos it’s the best

people seldom leave

p85

what if focusing on promotion is all wrong? let people stick with their perfect job

The mind and spirit and life-organizing part seems flimsy in contrast with the posture parts. But the posture parts will cure you. We just already know them from his previous book.

Well, there’s a separation between the quality of the content regarding the postures, and the extra stuff around it in this particular version. He tries to merge it together with the rest of yoga, the mind and spirit and life-organizing part. But they’re kind of flimsy really in contrast with the physical mechanical parts. That’s ultimately how it seemed anyway. And reading Emerson this ain’t. I don’t disagree with much, but ultimately is it correct beyond the 26 postures? The arranged marriage and what not. Well, as I rub my forehead and it is smooth rather than scaly, due to taking his class, how can I disagree? Feel bad then only 3.5 rating.