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Two years after Google purchased smart-home hardware startup Nest for a cool $3.2 billion, Tony Fadell is leaving as head of the company. Fadell confirmed the move in a blog post, but said he will continue advising Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and CEO Larry Page. Marwan Fawaz, a former Motorola Mobility executive, replaces Fadell.
“After six years of working on Nest, leading it through 4.5 years of double-digit growth and consistently high marks from customers, I leave Nest in the hands of a strong and experienced leadership team,” Fadell said in a statement. Page offers his own praise, saying, “Under Tony’s leadership, Nest has catapulted the connected home into the mainstream. He’s a true visionary and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role as advisor to Alphabet.”
Google bought Nest in 2014 with an eye toward diving into smart hardware and bringing its web services into your home. The deal gave Google an seasoned hardware executive. Fadell worked at Apple, where he was a key figure in developing the iPod and instrumental in designing the iPhone, before founding Nest in 2010 to reinvent “unloved” but important home gadgets like the thermostat and the smoke alarm. When Google reorganized under Alphabet last year, it made Nest an independent business and left Fadell in charge.
According to a report from The Information, Nest has struggled lately. Employees griped about Fadell’s management style, and said the company is floundering. Nest missed sales and product targets, employees said. (Nest denies the company stumbled under Fadell's leadership, saying revenue grew more than 50 percent year over year since it began shipping products in 2011.)
To be sure, this is a setback for Google. But it doesn’t mean the company is abandoning its hardware aspirations. It recently promoted another rising star, Rick Osterloh, a former president at Motorola. As a new Google senior vice president, Osterloh leads the company’s hardware efforts, including Nexus, Chromecast, and consumer hardware like Chromebooks. He also leads its Advanced Technology and Projects division, which is developing cool stuff like Google’s modular phone, Project Ara.
