Nest leader Tony Fadell on $555 million Dropcam buy: 'A lot of the employees were not as good as we hoped'
Kimberly White / Getty
In an interview with The Information as part of a long and excellent Nest expose (paywalled), CEO Tony Fadell admitted that about half of Dropcam's 100 employees had left, and said "A lot of the employees were not as good as we hoped...unfortunately it wasn't a very experienced team."
Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy clashed with Fadell over who would control various aspects of the integrated companies' camera business, and at one point Duffy asked Fadell to report directly to him instead of Nest cofounder Matt Rogers.
Fadell reportedly told him, "you haven't earned it." Duffy quit a few months later.
He also expressed regret over the Dropcam-Nest deal, telling The Information that, in hindsight, he felt like he had "failed all the people who worked for me and all the customers."
Overall, Fadell comes a cross as a bit of a tyrant and micromanager in the article, a description that matches Business Insider's previous reporting on Nest. (It also recalls some of the more extreme stories about Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who Fadell worked under when he helped design the iPod.)
Perhaps the most startling example is when Fadell threatened to fire Nest cofounder Matt Rogers if he went on his honeymoon because Rogers' team hadn't delivered an important feature on time. Rogers went anyway, and Fadell didn't follow through on his threat. Rogers, for his part, likened their relationship to a marriage and noted that good partners get over these kinds of "spats."
Everybody's buzzing about the article on Twitter this afternoon, and Information subscribers can read the full article here.
- I'm an interior designer. Here are 10 things in your living room you should get rid of.
- Higher-paid employees looking for work are having a tough time, and it could be a sign of a shift in the workplace
- A software engineer shares the résumé he's used since college that got him a $500,000 job at Meta — plus offers at TikTok and LinkedIn
- 7 scenic Indian villages perfect for May escapes
- Paneer snacks you can prepare in 30 minutes
- Markets crash: Investors' wealth erodes by ₹2.25 lakh crore
- Stay healthy and hydrated: 10 immunity-boosting fruit-based lemonades
- Here’s what you can do to recover after eating oily food