Working at Apple Pizza

A kid’s understand of what I do for work.

Robert McKeon Aloe
3 min readMar 8, 2021
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There is a certain perception of working at Apple, and it continues to persist. Some people think I go into work and eat pizza all day long. These people also believe Apple’s primary good is pizza. These people are my kids, and my kids think I work at a place called Apple Pizza.

Used under license by owner: https://www.flickr.com/photos/osunick/2806641841

When we first moved to California, I was working on the first generation of the Apple Watch. I had to work some long hours, and eating at Caffè Macs (i.e. cafeterias at Apple) at Infinite Loop. My wife and first born would come, and we would eat. He would run around the Caffè and the grass area. He would usually get pizza and a cookie. He will ask, “We go to Apple Pizza and get two pizzas, two cookies, and two waters?” So every time he sees the Apple Logo, he thinks wood fire oven, Napolitano style pizza.

As our family has grown (we now have two boys with a third on the way), this view of Apple hasn’t changed, and I haven’t done much to help. I told my sons Apple has a very large pizza operation, so much so, they built a new campus called Apple Park. Apple Park is shaped after a pizza because they are going all-in on pizza. It had a crust and some toppings. Clearly a pizza. I told them my office is in the thick crust. There are even some air bubbles when it was cooked that caused some hills. It even is cut into slices!

They haven’t asked yet, but when they do, I will tell them the founding of Apple. Once upon a time, there were two guys both named Steve. They didn’t like the current pizza selections because pizzas were big and bulky and not very personal. So, Steve and Steve got together in a garage and designed the Apple Pizza 1. They didn’t have many to sell, but the pizza design did well enough for them to start a company and develop the Apple Pizza II. From there, pizzas were flying off the shelf, and their pizza design became envied by all.

One day, my kids will realize I work at Apple not Apple Pizza, but I imagine it’s like finding out about Santa Claus. Until then, they will continue to eat entire pizzas and run around playing when they come to visit post-pandemic.

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Robert McKeon Aloe

I’m in love with my Wife, my Kids, Espresso, Data Science, tomatoes, cooking, engineering, talking, family, Paris, and Italy, not necessarily in that order.