Inventec

"The third floor of Inventec’s Taiwanese factory felt perfectly adequate when Apple was shipping iPods in the tens of thousands per month. When orders jumped to hundreds of thousands, it felt comically inadequate. “All of a sudden there were parts not only in the loading dock but up the stairwells in every cavern of that factory,” recalls a product designer. “There were boxes of parts that just literally took over the entire factory building. It was overflowing into the stairwells and emergency exits. There were parts *everywhere*. It went from nothing to ‘Oh my god, there’s not enough space to build these things.’ ”"

"As much as Inventec wanted to drive the shift, a lot of production stayed in Taiwan for months, upsetting Apple and creating tension. Apple put the burdens of the delay on Inventec, squeezing it on margins. “We were pushing them, like, ‘Look, you were supposed to move to China, and you haven’t done it, so you’re going to give us your “China cost” for this,” says a person on the project. “It’s not our fault you haven’t moved yet.’ ”"

"Tupman had no honeymoon period, no welcome, no introduction to Apple systems. But Fadell sent him schematics for the circuit board before he departed from Heathrow. During the twelve-hour flight, he made his mark spotting problems with the circuit diagrams—how the chips connect together and the resistors pass through the printed circuit layout. He knew this flight from his five years at Psion, which had also partnered with Inventec. The engineers did a double take when he walked in. They all knew him, and together, they got to work immediately on the problems he’d spotted. Then he got to hold a prototype iPod for the first time and immediately knew he’d made the right choice to join Apple. “It was like, ‘This is so cool!’ ” he says."

"Tupman had another wedding to attend in two days and would need several weeks to get an H1B visa to work in the United States. No wedding and no time, Fadell explained. They didn’t have a production-build prototype yet, but Steve Jobs would be unveiling it in just four weeks. Fadell had already taken the liberty of getting Tupman hired on a temporary basis with Inventec, the iPod’s contract manufacturer, so he could begin work straightaway and work out his US visa issues—and his move to California—later. *Crikey,* Tupman thought. “Oh, and one more thing,” said Fadell: “I bought you a ticket for tomorrow morning. It leaves at eleven a.m. You’re flying to Taipei, so pack for two months and get going.”"