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As I visited the heart of Apple, the headquarters in Cupertino

Apple picker
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A friend of a friend. This unique connection of just two people allowed me to fulfill one huge fan dream - to personally visit the heart of Apple, the HQ Campus in Cupertino, CA and get to places that I had only read about, seen occasionally in rare leaked photos, or rather seen just imagined. And even to ones I didn't even dream of. But in order…

Entering Apple HQ during a Sunday afternoon

At the outset, I would like to state that I am not a sensation hunter, I do not conduct industrial espionage, and I have not done any business with Tim Cook. Please take this article as an honest attempt to share my great personal experience with people who "know what I'm talking about".

It all started at the beginning of April last year, when I went to see my longtime friend in California. Although the address "1 Infinite Loop" was one of my TOP tourist wishes, it was not that simple. Basically, I was counting on the fact that - if I ever get to Cupertino - I will go around the complex and take a photo of the fluttering apple flag in front of the main entrance. In addition, my friend's intensive American work and personal workload did not add much to my hopes at first. But then it broke and events took an interesting turn.

On one of our outings together, we were passing through Cupertino unplanned, so I asked if we could go to Apple to at least see how the headquarters works live. It was Sunday afternoon, the spring sun was pleasantly warm, the roads were quiet. We drove past the main entrance and parked in the almost completely empty giant ring car park that surrounds the entire complex. It was interesting that it was not completely empty, but not significantly full for a Sunday. In short, a few people at Apple work even on Sunday afternoons, but there aren't many of them.

The author of the article for the corporate marking of the building and the entrance for visitors

I came to take a photo of the main entrance, did the requisite tourist pose by the sign denoting de facto mathematical nonsense ("Infinity No. 1"), and for a moment savored the feeling of being here. But truth be told, it wasn't quite that. A company is not made by buildings, but by people. And when there wasn't even a living person far and wide, the headquarters of one of the most valuable companies in the world seemed like an abandoned nest, like a supermarket after closing time. Weird feeling…

On the way back, with Cupertino slowly disappearing in the mirror, I was still thinking about the feeling in my head, when a friend dialed a number out of the blue, and thanks to the hands-free listening, I couldn't believe my ears. "Hi Stacey, I'm just passing through Cupertino with a friend from the Czech Republic and I was wondering if we could meet you at Apple sometime for lunch," he asked. "Oh yeah, bet I'll find a date and write you an email," came the reply. And it was.

Two weeks passed and D-day arrived. I put on a celebratory t-shirt with a disassembled Macintosh, picked up a friend at work and, with a noticeable rumble in my stomach, began to approach the Infinite Loop again. It was Tuesday before noon, the sun was shining, the parking lot was packed to bursting. The same backdrops, the opposite feeling – the company as a living, throbbing organism.

View of the reception in the entrance hall of the main building. Source: Flickr

At the reception, we announced to one of the two assistants who we were going to see. In the meantime, she invited us to register on the nearby iMac and settle in the lobby before our hostess picked us up. An interesting detail – after our registration, the self-adhesive labels did not come out automatically immediately, but were printed only after an Apple employee personally picked us up. In my opinion, classic "Applovina" - grinding the principle down to its basic functionality.

So we sat down in the black leather seats and waited for Stacey for a few minutes. The entire entrance building is de facto one large space with a height of three floors. The left and right wings are connected by three "bridges", and it is at their level that the building is divided vertically into an entrance hall with a reception and a vast atrium, already "behind the line". It's hard to say where an army of special forces would run from in the event of a forced entry into the interior of the atrium, but the fact is that this entrance is guarded by one (yes, one) security guard.

When Stacey picked us up, we finally got those visitor tags and also two $10 vouchers to cover lunch. After a short welcome and introduction, we crossed the demarcation line into the main atrium and, without unnecessary prolongation, continued straight through the inner park of the campus to the opposite building, where the employee restaurant and cafeteria "Café Macs" is located on the ground floor. On the way, we passed the well-known podium embedded in the ground, where the big farewell to Steve Jobs "Remembering Steve" was held. I felt like I walked into a movie…

Café Macs welcomed us with a midday hum, where there could be an estimated 200-300 people at one time. The restaurant itself is actually several different buffet islands, arranged according to the types of cuisine - Italian, Mexican, Thai, vegetarian (and others that I didn't really get around to). It was enough to join the selected queue and within a minute we were already being served. It was interesting that, despite my initial fear of the expected crowds, the confusing situation and the long time in the queue, everything went incredibly smoothly, quickly and clearly.

(1) Stage for concerts and events inside Central Park, (2) Restaurant/Cafeteria "Café Macs" (3) Building 4 Infinity Loop, which houses Apple developers, (4) Executive Floor upper reception, (5) Office of Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple, (6) Office of Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, (7) Office of Steve Jobs, (8) Apple Board Room. Source: Apple Maps

Apple employees don't get free lunches, but they buy them at prices that are more affordable than in regular restaurants. Including the main dish, drink and dessert or salad, they usually fit under 10 dollars (200 crowns), which is a pretty good price for America. However, I was surprised that they also paid for apples. Even so, I couldn't resist and packed one for lunch - after all, when I'm lucky enough to have an "apple in apple".

With lunch we made our way around the full front garden back to the airy atrium by the main entrance. We had a moment to talk with our guide under the crowns of the living green trees. She has been working at Apple for many years, she was a close colleague of Steve Jobs, they met daily in the corridor and even though it had been a year and a half since he left, it was very clear how much she was missed. "It still feels like he's still here with us," she said.

In that context, I asked about the employees' commitment to work - whether it had changed in any way since they proudly wore "90 hours/week and I love it!" T-shirts during the development of the Macintosh. "It's exactly the same," Stacey replied flatly and without a hint of hesitation. Although I will leave aside the typical American professionalism from the perspective of the employee ("I value my work."), it seems to me that at Apple there is still that voluntary loyalty above duty to a greater extent than at other companies.

(9) Executive Floor, (10) Main entrance to Central Building 1 Infinity Loop, (11) Building 4 Infinity Loop, which houses Apple developers. Source: Apple Maps

Then we jokingly asked Stacey if she would take us to the legendary black skirt room (labs with secret new products). She thought for a moment and then said, "Of course not there, but I can take you to the Executive Floor - as long as you don't even speak there..." Wow! Of course, we immediately promised not to even breathe, finished our lunch and headed for the elevators.

The Executive Floor is the third floor in the left wing of the main building. We took the elevator up and crossed the third, highest bridge arching over the atrium on one side and the entrance reception on the other. We entered the mouth of the corridors of the upper floor, where the reception is located. Stacey, the smiling and slightly scrutinizing receptionist, knew us, so she just passed her by, and we silently waved hello.

And right around the first corner came the highlight of my visit. Stacey stopped, pointed a few meters away to an open office door on the right side of the corridor, put her finger to her mouth and whispered, "That's Tim Cook's office." I stood frozen for two or three seconds just staring at the ajar door. I wondered if he was inside. Then Stacey noted just as quietly, “Steve's office is across the street.” A few more seconds passed as I thought about the entire history of Apple, all the interviews with Jobs replayed before my eyes, and I just thought, “there you are, right in the heart of Apple , in the place where it all comes from, this is where history walked."

The author of the article on the terrace of the office of Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple

Then she laconically added that the office here (right in front of us!) is Oppenheimer's (CFO of Apple) and was already taking us to the large terrace next to it. That's where I took my first breath. My heart was beating like a race, my hands were shaking, there was a lump in my throat, but at the same time I felt somehow terribly satisfied and happy. We were standing on the terrace of the Apple Executive Floor, next to us Tim Cook's terrace suddenly felt as "familiar" as the neighbor's balcony, Steve Jobs' office 10 meters from me. My dream came true.

We chatted for a while, me enjoying the view from the executive floor of the opposite campus buildings that house Apple's developers, and then they drifted back down the hall. I quietly asked Stacey "just a few seconds" and without a word stopped once more to look down the hall. I wanted to remember this moment as best as possible.

Illustrative picture of the corridor on the Executive Floor. There are now no photos on the walls, no wooden tables, more orchids in recessed niches in the walls. Source: Flickr

We went back to the reception on the upper floor and continued down the corridor to the opposite side. Right at the first door on the left, Stacey noted that it was the Apple Board Room, the room where the company's top board meets for meetings. I didn't really notice the other names of the rooms we passed, but they were mostly conference rooms.

There were a lot of white orchids in the corridors. “Steve really liked those,” Stacey commented when I smelled one of them (yes, I wondered if they were real). We also praised the beautiful white leather sofas that you could sit on around the reception, but Stacey surprised us with the answer: "These are not from Steve. These are new. They were such an old, ordinary one. Steve didn't like change in that.” It's strange how a man who was downright obsessed with innovation and visionary could be unexpectedly conservative in certain ways.

Our visit was slowly coming to an end. For fun, Stacey showed us on her iPhone her hand-drawn photo of Jobs' Mercedes parked in the regular parking lot outside the company. Of course, in a parking space for the disabled. On the way down the elevator, she told us a short story from the making of "Ratatouille," how everyone at Apple was shaking their heads about why anyone would care about a "rat that cooks" movie, while Steve was in his office blasting away one song from that movie over and over again...

[gallery columns=”2″ ids=”79654,7 that he will also go with us to their Company Store, which is right around the corner next to the main entrance and where we can buy souvenirs that are not sold in any other Apple store in the world. And that he will give us an employee discount of 20%. Well, don't buy it. I didn't want to delay our guide any longer, so I really just skimmed through the store and quickly picked out two black t-shirts (one proudly emblazoned with "Cupertino. Home of the Mothership") and a premium stainless steel coffee thermos. We said our goodbyes and I sincerely thanked Stacey for literally the experience of a lifetime.

On the way from Cupertino, I sat in the passenger seat for about twenty minutes staring absently into the distance, replaying the three-quarters of an hour that had just passed, which until recently was hardly imaginable, and nibbling on an apple. An apple from Apple. By the way, not much.

Comment on photos: Not all photos were taken by the author of the article, some are from other time periods and serve only to illustrate and give a better idea of ​​the places that the author visited, but was not allowed to photograph or publish.

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