I've learnt something from every failure. The products I helped design at the first two companies I worked for were utter failures. But now I know why.
— Tony Fadell
I don't want the iPod to be my defining thing.
I knew there were all kinds of interesting things going on at Google, but now that I've seen them, my mind has been blown - in a great way. They have all these amazing projects and people that the world doesn't know anything about. I'm like a kid in a candy store - it's an idea factory.
It can't be that difficult to build a great thermostat. So I decided to figure out: What would the thermostat for the iPhone generation look like? I got this bug. It really infected my brain. I kept thinking about it. This could be a cool product that matters and a cool product that has a great business.
People buy products, and they want to understand what those things are and how they are applicable to their life.
Google has the business resources, global scale and platform reach to accelerate Nest growth across hardware, software and services for the home globally.
When I was four or five years old, my grandfather showed me how to build things, paint, saw. Through years of fixing bikes, repairing lawn mowers, I learned how things work.
Thermostats are made by very large companies with no incentive to innovate. Their customers are contractors or HVAC wholesalers, not consumers. So why spend to make them better? It's a good business.
Every person I talk to has a story about how their smoke alarm went off or woke them up with a battery beeping. So you take it off the wall and you take the battery out and say 'screw this.' They hate the products.
We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasn't time for endless refinements.
It wasn't until the Apple Macintosh that people understood what true hardware-software integration was about. It took one company to line it up: low-cost hardware, cool graphics, third-party products built on top of it, in an all-in-one attractive package that was accessible to consumer marketing.
It's not just about turning up or down the heat, it's about the other experiences that come with turning up or down the heat - what are we doing about energy, what are we doing about your health and safety.
You have to look at why people come and work at Nest. Part of it is that a lot of people here already know each other, but we're also on a mission with a purpose. People are personally motivated by energy or safety.
Well, you can say there is a self driving car. I'm seeing the automation of vehicles. Really, computer-assisted driving. I think that is really interesting to us because we are taking all of the sensors technologies and putting them in cars and making people safer.
Nest really came out of a process where I was trying to design the most connected and the most green home that I knew of. I was curious of just about everything that goes into a home and building a home.
I had been doing MP3 players and handheld computers since 1990-1991, and so they sought me out because of my experience. And about 18 generations of iPod and three generations of iPhone later, I decided to leave Apple.
I used to work about 100 hours a week; now it's about 70. But 40 hours? Forget about it. Either you're all in, or your not.
No amount of data will tell you if a feature should be in the product, because it doesn't exist. You need to have a very clear leader with a clear point of view... otherwise, you get a mishmash of features and stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense.
I say homes are for families, and you have to make sure you design for the family, not just one person: kids, your wife, your grandparents need to be able to use it.
Having kids makes you think about the world differently.
If you look at where the tried and true of Silicon Valley VC's are investing, it's in people who understand what it takes, who've been through it and have a network of people they can tap and resources to pull together.
You need to set near-term milestones. Put the assumptions down on paper, and make it to your vision or ultimate product. Your team has to understand where they're going. Your partners need to understand where they're going.
I look at the world and peer into products and think, 'What's wrong with these products?'
In Tahoe, you want to be able check on the temperature of the house or turn it on before you get there. Because it's really cold in the winter.
I started designing the greenest the most connected home before the iPhone and the iPad.
To help you focus, to help you really understand what you're doing, you have to say no a lot. When you say yes to everything, you get distracted. When you say no, you have to get the one thing you're doing really right.
I have not seen a true grounds-up revolution from a bunch of companies getting together. It takes one company to put it together, then people draft off of that, but they don't build it top to bottom with a specific vision.
Your television has changed, your phone has changed. Why don't these other things you need, that the government tells you you must have in your home, change?
Learning by doing is the only way I know how to learn.
Typical mergers happen when there are two competitors coming together, and they reduce overhead.
I knew a lot about product design before coming to Apple, but I didn't understand a lot about consumer experience design, which is really Apple's forte.
At the end of the day, customer choice is essential. And we don't make products that compete with Apple, nor make products that compete with Google. Our customers come in both iOS and Android flavors, and I hope our customers can still buy the products they want to purchase wherever they want to purchase them.
If you don't have an emotionally engaging design for a device, no one will care about it.
Computers are great tools, but they need to be applied to the physical world.
While I was designing my home, I was living in different houses all around the world, and I saw thermostats that were just as bad as the ones in the U.S., or houses that needed them but didn't have them. I realised that this was a worldwide problem. I thought, 'Let's fix it.'
If you look at most successful startups, they're run by people in their mid to late forties, who've gone through the trenches multiple times and had multiple failures, so they understand.
With most tech guys, it's the same outfit every day - they wear their company logo.
There are two different types of prototyping. First, the gut sense. You know how far you can take it. Second, you need experts to figure out whether or not it is attainable.
We work crazy hours in Silicon Valley; my wife says we're all kind of diseased in some way. We're totally obsessive compulsive - when we see an idea, we're like, 'let me in, it's so much fun.'
Studies have shown that children are less likely to wake up to a horn than the sound of a mother's voice.
Usually, the biggest companies are not the most dynamic.
I learned the power of 'no.' No is really important. Entrepreneurs are told to say 'yes, yes, more, more.'
I've been working with contractors designing and building a house on a nonstop basis since 2005. I learned about all these systems of audio, construction, electricity, energy, water systems.
You start with the right amount of rational and emotional experiences. You have to blend those in your product when you come out.
Nest Thermostat owners like the carbon monoxide link. If Nest Protect's carbon monoxide alarm goes off, the Nest Thermostat automatically turns off the gas furnace.
Most thermostats are built by plumbing companies. But you really need to understand how to build a phone to make them better.
I don't look backwards. I'm pleasantly surprised, and I feel really proud of the team and what we were able to accomplish together. But really, where I'm focused is the future and where Nest is going.
