Fascinating well-researched investigative report by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher for the New York Times, on the rise of China as a manufacturing power and the corresponding effect on middle class jobs in the U.S., with Apple as the case study. Includes this heretofore unknown (to me, at least) story on the original iPhone’s last-minute change from a plastic to glass display:
In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to
appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into
an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the
device in his pocket.Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could
see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen,
according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his
keys from his jeans.People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also
carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that
gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using
unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it
perfect in six weeks.”After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to
Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere
else to go.
The Times has quotes from former and present (unnamed in the latter case, of course) executives who all paint the same picture: that Chinese manufacturing isn’t merely cheaper, but also perhaps even more importantly, nimbler, more flexible, and faster:
“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni,
who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but
declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can
find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”
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