Tony Fadell Announces He Is 'Leaving the Nest'

Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest, has announced that he is leaving the company. Nest Labs was acquired for $3.2 billion in 2014 when it had 280 employees. By November of last year the company had over 1100 employees.

In a blog post today, Fadell writes, "My news is bittersweet: I have decided that the time is right to 'leave the Nest.'"

Although this news may feel sudden to some, this transition has been in progress since late last year and while I won’t be present day to day at Nest, I’ll remain involved in my new capacity as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry Page. This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters!


Marwan Fawaz will be joining Nest as the company's new CEO. He previously worked as CEO of Motorola Home and was a managing partner Sarepta Advisors.

Notably, there has been some drama surrounding Fadell as CEO of Nest at Alphabet. Employees have criticized his demanding leadership style which has allegedly resulted in an exodus of employees, missed sales targets, botched product upgrades and delayed future launches.

Following Dropcam's acquisition by Nest and his departure from the company, Dropcam cofounder and CEO Greg Duffy posted this on Medium.

There is a lot that I could say about my extreme differences on management style with the current leadership at Nest, who seem to be fetishizing only the most superfluous and negative traits of their mentors. For the sake of the customers and for the talented employees that remain there, I hope they find a way through these struggles.


Despite the turmoil, Alphabet CEO Larry Page says, "Under Tony’s leadership, Nest has catapulted the connected home into the mainstream, secured leadership positions for each of its products, and grown its revenue in excess of 50% year over year since they began shipping products. He’s a true visionary and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role as advisor to Alphabet. I’m delighted that Marwan will be the new Nest CEO and am confident in his ability to deepen Nest’s partnerships, expand within enterprise channels, and bring Nest products to even more homes."

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