Tony Fadell - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/tony-fadell","20170916153402","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1505576042"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Tony Fadell - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="When the rest of the world was just waking up to the possibility of cell phones and the Internet, Tony Fadell was already creating the technology behind the smartphone. Author of more than 300 patents, he sold a microprocessor startup to Apple just as he was leaving college. He spent the next decade pioneering mobile technology for the leading electronics companies, but none would fully commit to marketing the devices he created. When investors passed on Fadell's idea for a pocket-sized digital music player, Steve Jobs recruited him to design just such a product for Apple. Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone, rising to senior vice president of the iPod division. Not satisfied with revolutionizing the way we communicate, navigate and listen to music, Fadell founded Nest Labs to bring smart technology to the most common household devices. The Nest Thermostat conserves energy by learning the habits of its users and can be managed remotely by smartphone. Nest Protect is an intelligent smoke and carbon monoxide detector that distinguishes between levels of threat and provides relaxed voice alerts instead of piercing alarms. Future products may address areas such as water conservation and home security. In 2014, Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Tony Fadell - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="When the rest of the world was just waking up to the possibility of cell phones and the Internet, Tony Fadell was already creating the technology behind the smartphone. Author of more than 300 patents, he sold a microprocessor startup to Apple just as he was leaving college. He spent the next decade pioneering mobile technology for the leading electronics companies, but none would fully commit to marketing the devices he created. When investors passed on Fadell's idea for a pocket-sized digital music player, Steve Jobs recruited him to design just such a product for Apple. Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone, rising to senior vice president of the iPod division. Not satisfied with revolutionizing the way we communicate, navigate and listen to music, Fadell founded Nest Labs to bring smart technology to the most common household devices. The Nest Thermostat conserves energy by learning the habits of its users and can be managed remotely by smartphone. Nest Protect is an intelligent smoke and carbon monoxide detector that distinguishes between levels of threat and provides relaxed voice alerts instead of piercing alarms. Future products may address areas such as water conservation and home security. In 2014, Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fadell5-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="When the rest of the world was just waking up to the possibility of cell phones and the Internet, Tony Fadell was already creating the technology behind the smartphone. Author of more than 300 patents, he sold a microprocessor startup to Apple just as he was leaving college. He spent the next decade pioneering mobile technology for the leading electronics companies, but none would fully commit to marketing the devices he created. When investors passed on Fadell's idea for a pocket-sized digital music player, Steve Jobs recruited him to design just such a product for Apple. Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone, rising to senior vice president of the iPod division. Not satisfied with revolutionizing the way we communicate, navigate and listen to music, Fadell founded Nest Labs to bring smart technology to the most common household devices. The Nest Thermostat conserves energy by learning the habits of its users and can be managed remotely by smartphone. Nest Protect is an intelligent smoke and carbon monoxide detector that distinguishes between levels of threat and provides relaxed voice alerts instead of piercing alarms. Future products may address areas such as water conservation and home security. In 2014, Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion."/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Tony Fadell - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fadell5-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170916153402\/http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"WebSite","@id":"#website","url":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170916153402\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/","name":"Academy of Achievement","alternateName":"A museum of living history","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170916153402\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/search\/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}</script> <script 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</div> </div> </header> <div class="" role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fadell5-Feature-Image-2800x1120-380x152.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fadell5-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fadell5-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Tony Fadell</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">iPod Mastermind and Founder of Nest</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-36965 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-entrepreneur careers-inventor"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/WhatItTakes_fadell-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast on iTunes produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: music, science and exploration, sports, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Learn by doing. Learn through experiences. And this goes back to Steve Jobs' thing — which is the way you open up your knowledge of the world is by discovering it and learning about it, not through books, but by being there.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Inventing the Future</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 22, 1969 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_37078" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-37078 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-37078 size-full lazyload" alt="2011: Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest Labs. " width="1600" height="2400" data-sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell.jpg 1600w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Tony Fadell has been fascinated with how things work since the age of four when his grandfather taught him how to take things apart — and put them back together.</figcaption></figure><p>Anthony Michael Fadell was born in Michigan, to a Lebanese-American father and a Polish-American mother. His father was a sales executive with the Levi Strauss company and the family moved frequently when Tony Fadell was growing up. Tony counts 12 schools he attended in a 15-year period. Grosse Pointe, Michigan was the community the Fadell family most often returned to, and Tony Fadell graduated from Grosse Pointe South High School. His maternal grandfather, a teacher and school superintendent, was an inveterate tinkerer and taught Tony to use tools, build things and repair machinery. Tony discovered computers at age 12 and caddied at a local golf club to raise money to buy his first Apple II. In high school, he perused <em>MacWorld</em> and the other computer magazines and dreamed of working with the team responsible for creating Apple’s Macintosh computer. He studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan and as an undergraduate built a small business, Constructive Instruments, producing multimedia composition software for children.</p> <p>In the years following the departure of company founder Steve Jobs from Apple, a new products division, General Magic, was spun off from the parent company, and several of Apple’s most talented employees left to join the new firm. Eager to “work with my heroes,” Fadell packed his bags for California and scored a job at the startup. Fadell spent three years at General Magic, exploring the potential of handheld devices to make information technology truly portable. Fadell developed a number of new devices for General Magic clients, including the Sony Magic Link and Motorola Envoy. The company was packed with talent and new ideas but never achieved takeoff. Historians of the industry call it “the most influential failure” in Silicon Valley.</p> <figure id="attachment_37057" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-37057 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-37057 size-full lazyload" width="1800" height="1800" data-sizes="(max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14.jpg 1800w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">January 2007: Steve Jobs with some of his executives who designed the iPhone, from left to right: Philip Schiller, Tony Fadell, Design Chief Jonathan Ive, Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall, and Eddy Cue. Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone during a keynote presentation at the MacWorld conference in San Francisco. The iPhone revolutionized mobile phone technology, combining the capabilities of a cell phone, an iPod, and an Internet communications device with a revolutionary touch-screen design. Apple hired Fadell in April 2001 to run its iPod & Special Projects engineering group. The iPod, first launched in October of 2001, became a <span class="st">worldwide cultural phenomenon</span>.</figcaption></figure><p>After leaving General Magic, Fadell served as chief technology officer of the Mobile Computing Group at the international consumer electronics giant Philips. He helped develop a pair of portable devices for Philips, the Velo and Nino, but Philips never fully committed to marketing them and Fadell was on the move again. A lifelong music lover, he hoped to develop a portable digital music player. While seeking financing for his own startup, he received an invitation to advise Apple, where founder Steve Jobs was once again at the helm.</p> <figure id="attachment_37065" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-37065 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-37065 size-full lazyload" width="2280" height="3599" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115-241x380.jpg 241w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115-481x760.jpg 481w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">In 2010, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers left Apple’s iPod and iPhone development division to start Nest, a technology company working to build a state-of-the-art thermostat. “It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls 10% of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn’t kept up with advancements in technology and design,” said Fadell.</figcaption></figure><p>Jobs too was interested in developing a music player, and Fadell went to work for Apple as an outside contractor in 2001. He was wary of going to work for another large company after his experience at Philips, but when he presented Apple with his design, Jobs offered him a full-time job leading a new Special Projects group.</p> <p>Fadell oversaw the first 18 iterations of the iPod, the device that revived Apple’s flagging fortunes and massively disrupted the cassette-tape and CD-based music industry. Within five years, Fadell rose from outside consultant to senior vice president in charge of Apple’s iPod division.</p> <figure id="attachment_37082" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-37082 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-37082 size-full lazyload" width="1024" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large.jpg 1024w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell with Google co-founder Larry Page in Palo Alto, California. On January 13, 2014, Google announced it had entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash. Nest would continue to operate under the leadership of Tony Fadell and with its own distinct brand identity. (AP Images)</figcaption></figure><p>When Steve Jobs decided to move Apple into the mobile phone sector, he placed Fadell in charge of the new project. Efforts to add a phone to the architecture of the iPod failed, but when Fadell and his team reimagined the project as a mobile phone with a built-in iPod, they created another game-changing device, the iPhone. For the second time, Fadell and his team at Apple had overturned the equilibrium of the consumer electronics industry and set Apple on the path to becoming the most highly capitalized company in history.</p> <p>While Fadell was sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Jobs, their relationship was as turbulent as it was productive. Friction between the pair led to impassioned arguments and repeated threats by Fadell to resign. Meanwhile, Fadell began dating Apple’s vice president for human resources, Danielle Lambert, and the couple married within a year. In time, the demands of a growing family began to conflict with their grueling work schedules, and the pair resigned from Apple in 2008. Fadell took his family for a round-the-world tour, based in Paris, France, while completing an 18-month commitment as an advisor to Jobs.</p> <figure id="attachment_37066" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37066 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break-.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37066 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break-.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break--380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break--760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break-.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Delegates Jeremy Fishel, Wren Dougherty, Lucas Brown, Laurie Segall, Eric Kuhn, Samantha Barry, Rahul Rekhi, Alex Chaitoff and Bryan Laulicht meet Tony Fadell at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco.</figcaption></figure><p>Returning to California, Fadell and Lambert set out to build an environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient dream home in Lake Tahoe. When Fadell became dissatisfied with the existing thermostats designs, he set himself the task of creating an elegant, intelligent device that could conserve energy by learning the users’ habits and adjusting the temperature of the home accordingly. It occurred to Fadell that many of the devices in everyday use in the home were overdue for reinvention. With a former Apple colleague, Matt Rogers, he created a new company, Nest Labs, to bring digital technology into the basic systems of the modern home.</p> <figure id="attachment_37074" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-37074 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-37074 size-full lazyload" width="2280" height="2850" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107-608x760.jpg 608w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member George Lucas presents the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Tony Fadell during the 2014 International Achievement Summit’s Banquet of the Golden Plate in San Francisco.</figcaption></figure><p>Fadell and Lambert recruited more former Apple personnel to staff the new company, and given Fadell’s achievements at Apple, venture capital was quickly drawn to the startup. The Nest Learning Thermostat reached the market in October 2011 and has been followed by Nest smoke detectors and security systems. Fadell has authored more than 300 patents. In 2012, he received the Alva Award as “the next great serial inventor.” <em>TIME</em>, <em>Fortune</em>, <em>Vanity Fair</em>, <em>Business Insider</em>, <em>Fast Company</em>, CNN and CNBC have all named him to their lists of leading innovators.</p> <figure id="attachment_37070" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37070 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37070 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2016: Fadell is also the co-founder of Actev Motors, a young, Mountain View, California-based company creating all-electric smart go-karts for children. Fadell’s work with Actev Motors is a passion project that ties to both his childhood interest in automobiles and his other full-time job: parenting. (<span class="_Tgc">©</span> Rebecca Wilkowski Photography)</figcaption></figure><p>In 2014, Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion, making principal Nest shareholder Tony Fadell a billionaire overnight. Fadell continued to run Nest as a division of Google for the first year. The following year, Fadell was put in charge of the stumbling Google Glass project, the company’s controversial effort to create a wearable computer to be worn like eyeglasses. When Google was reorganized at the end of 2015, Nest was spun off to operate alongside Google as a subsidiary of a new parent company, Alphabet, Inc. The following spring, Fadell resigned his positions with Nest and Google.</p> <p>Today, Tony Fadell, Danielle Lambert, and their growing family are once again living in Paris, France.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2014 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.inventor">Inventor</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.entrepreneur">Entrepreneur</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 22, 1969 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>When the rest of the world was just waking up to the possibility of cell phones and the Internet, Tony Fadell was already creating the technology behind the smartphone. Author of more than 300 patents, he sold a microprocessor startup to Apple just as he was leaving college. He spent the next decade pioneering mobile technology for the leading electronics companies, but none would fully commit to marketing the devices he created.</p> <p>When investors passed on Fadell’s idea for a pocket-sized digital music player, Steve Jobs recruited him to design just such a product for Apple. Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone, rising to senior vice president of the iPod division.</p> <p>Not satisfied with revolutionizing the way we communicate, navigate and listen to music, Fadell founded Nest Labs to bring smart technology to the most common household devices. The Nest Thermostat conserves energy by learning the habits of its users and can be managed remotely by smartphone. Nest Protect is an intelligent smoke and carbon monoxide detector that distinguishes between levels of threat and provides relaxed voice alerts instead of piercing alarms. Future products may address areas such as water conservation and home security. In 2014, Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/CwI4l3mWcOo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_01_50_00.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_01_50_00.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Inventing the Future</h2> <div class="sans-2">Palo Alto, California</div> <div class="sans-2">February 5, 2016</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You had the idea of a personal digital music player well before you came to Apple and built the iPod, didn’t you?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jA-sKyJ8d7Q?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_19_44_04.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_19_44_04.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, I’ve always had a love of music, growing up some time in Detroit and everything, that was like Detroit Rock City, right? So I went to concerts when I was young, and I loved music and I learned to play the piano horribly. I was not a good piano player, banging on the keys, bang, bang, bang, bang. So that wasn’t the thing, but I loved to listen to it and learn a lot about it. So music was always through my life, and in college I would start playing tunes for people. And that turned into kind of — before DJs were DJs like we know ’em today, I would just play stuff for parties and stuff like that. And I continued to do it, and even as I came to Silicon Valley, I’d do more and more of that stuff because I loved it so. And I had to start carrying around all these CD cases, thousands of CDs — because vinyl went out. Vinyl’s back in style now, but vinyl went out — carrying all these CDs, and the gear and everything, and I just didn’t want — I loved music, but I hated all the struggle to do this, to carry it, move it, to find the songs I love, to put ’em on, and I’d always thinking — because we were doing these handhelds — and when we started putting headphone jacks on them for audio books, and I’m like, wait a second. These handhelds, one day if they have enough memory, they could be great for music. Lo and behold! Then mp3 players came, or mp3 files came, and then some mp3 players came. And I wanted to make a really big jukebox, so I was making a kind of a rackmount CD player. You’d have the CD and a hard drive inside, and we were ripping the songs — the mp3 would come out of the CDs — and put ’em on the hard drive. That was the genesis. So I was making small stuff, my love of music, and building this box at that startup I was telling you about. Then it all came together into the iPod.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So you agreed to come on as a consultant, and then wasn’t there some pressure to join the company full-time?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: “Some” is an interesting way of putting it.</p> <p><strong>Could you tell us about that?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: So the first six weeks of my consultancy was — six or eight weeks — it was design. Go and learn everything about these chips. Luckily — about the chips, the marketplace. Put together this whole overview of the business. And so I did that and did the best I could do in six weeks. It’s a lot of work for more or less one person to put this all together and percent it to Steve. So — and I had some help with some other people at Apple. But they were helping to make sure the presentation looked good for Steve. They wanted to make sure this meeting was gonna go well.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/J3mJ2G7qv6Y?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_04_04_03.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_04_04_03.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I presented a Styrofoam model that I created, and a lot of the building materials, the things that you build the iPod with, the business angles, how many we could sell, those kinds of stuff, how big the team would need to be, schedules. And at the end, Steve picked up this Styrofoam block that was the iPod. He was like, “Let’s do this.” And he goes, “Now we have to hire you.”</p> <p>And Jon turns to me and goes like this, he goes, “I got this. Don’t worry.” So then what began a three-week intense battle going, “Look, I have a startup, Jon. I can’t leave this startup. I can’t leave this team in a lurch. I need to do what’s right for them.” And he’s like, “No, no, come to Apple. You’re gonna do this.” I go, “Look, I’ve been at Philips. I’ve been at other big companies. Nine out of ten projects that get started get killed at those kinds of company.”</p> <p>And he goes, “No, no, no. This one’s gonna ship.” I said, “I don’t believe it. I go, “And then once you ship…” — remember, Apple was not the Apple you know today. Apple back then was, at best case — what was it? $250 million? Two hundred fifty million dollars in the bank and $500 million in debt, and they were break-even quarter-to-quarter.</p> <p>They had less than one percent market share for Macintoshes in the U.S. Not in the world, one percent market share in the — everyone said it’s a dying company. So I’m like, “Wait a second, Jon. This company wants to do this. I’ve seen all these projects die. Are you gonna actually have the funds to actually market it when you’re under attack? Like, why should I join this company?” And so he couldn’t really convince me, and I’m… So I said — and I talked to other people around — and I started going, “Okay, well, this startup thing I have is not going so well. I can bring some of the people with me. Maybe this is a chance I should take.” This is this gut reaction, like everything in your brain logically goes, “Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.” And then my gut’s going, “Maybe there’s something here.” So I said to Jon, I go, “Look, I’ve talked to a bunch of people. I’m starting to understand how you guys work here. I need to talk to Steve.” So he arranged for me to chat with Steve.</p> <p>And I was like, “Steve…” I was like, “What about Sony? They’re number one. They own every audio category.” And he was like, “We’re gonna beat ’em. Watch.” And I go, “Wait a second. Sony? Do you understand this?” He’s like, “I’m telling you, we’re gonna beat ’em.” And he had such confidence. I said “Yeah, I think we can build the product, but will you sell and market it?” And he said to me, “If you build this, and it’s a quality product, I will put every dollar of Apple marketing behind this to watch this thing go. And I’m patient, and I will make this happen. You just get this done.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_37077" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37077 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry-.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37077 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry-.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry--380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry--760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry-.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Academy delegate and journalist Samantha Barry interviews Tony Fadell at the 2014 Summit in San Francisco.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/o75ynuG0RjU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.01_10_50_02.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.01_10_50_02.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: I had heard lots of stories from my General Magic friends who worked for Steve, right? I’m like, “Can I trust him?” My gut’s going, “Okay, this is starting to feel better, but I’m not ready yet.” So while I’m talking to Steve, Jon had set up a big meeting for me to reveal, because he wanted me to just say yes, and I was supposed to reveal this secret project to a big set of Apple execs and people who should be in the know about the program, because it’s so secret at Apple.</p> <p>So he sets up this big meeting. I’m still talking to Steve. Now I’m 20 minutes late to this meeting. There’s 20 – 25 people in it. So Steve and I hang up. I walk in this room late. Everybody’s just sitting there. Except for two people, they’d never met me. They were like, “Who is this guy? Why are we waiting for him? What is he gonna tell us about?” I walk in the door, scowls on their faces, and Jon looks at me and goes, “So are you gonna take the job?” in front of all of these people.</p> <p>And I turn, and I look, and I was just confused. And he goes, “So are you taking the job? Right here, right now. This meeting will be canceled if you don’t take it.” And I was like, “What?” And I turned to the whole audience, who I didn’t know, and I said, “Does this happen in every Apple interview? Is this how you do closing?” So it broke the ice, and everybody was like chuckling under their breath because they were also shocked and stunned, because they didn’t know what was going on.</p> <p>In my brain, you’re going really fast, and here’s the gut, right, and the rational are like fighting right now. Both sides of my shoulders are screaming in my ears. And I’m looking at Jon, and I’m looking him in the eye, and I’m like, there’s only two ways this is gonna go down. Either I’m gonna go, “No. Screw you. I’m gonna get what I want,” or “Yes,” and trust that was gonna happen. And I’m like, the first thing I don’t want to do is make my potential new boss look dumb in front of all these people.</p> <p>And I was like, if it’s not working, I can always leave. And I was like, okay. So I looked him straight in the eye, and I said yes. Then what happens? I go and sit down in my seat. I was in such shock, I couldn’t even put a word together for 15 minutes. I just sat there in the room like this and Stan Ang — who was the guy who was helping me create the presentation and everything with Steve — Stan took over and started talking to people about the design and everything else. But I was just shocked. I didn’t know what I did, and for the next two days, I was an utter mess trying to figure out, “Did I do the right thing?” or whatever. So hopefully not a lot of other people have that kind of a job interview and close, but that was mine at Apple. Very unique. It’s a unique place.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>It does illustrate that sometimes you have to close one door to open another. You had to turn your back on one project that was in your heart, and trust that this was really going to come through.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: That’s right. In the end, you don’t know. You can’t rerun the experiment. We can’t go back and say, “Was that startup company going to be a success if I’d stayed?” We do know what happened with it. I think that was probably the best outcome, which was the iPod came to the world. When you’re in those moments, when you’re at that fork in the road, logic doesn’t always apply.</p> <p><strong> Did you foresee how successful the iPod would be, how universally accepted it would be, and how it would revolutionize the music industry?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: No. We had no clue.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/t3rIRIsS3U8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_40_23_23.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_40_23_23.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: You have to remember, especially me, I had such failure for the first ten years in Silicon Valley. General Magic — over a billion dollars invested in 1990 dollars! Could you imagine what that is today? The best team in the world. We were told we were gonna topple Microsoft and all these companies. All the press was like — and it was an utter disaster from a business perspective. Amazing connections and people and all that stuff, but an utter disaster.</p> <p>And I had poured my life into it, right? Every single bit of blood, sweat, and tears went into the company, and I was mortified when it was a disaster. That’s when we went to Philips. I poured myself into that again. Another disaster. A great product, but another disaster. So you get tempered, and instead of think and believe it’s going to be a success, you <em>hope</em> it’s going to be a success.</p> <p>But you also know, on the other side, failure is always an option, and it’s more likely that it’s gonna fail than succeed. So when you go into these new projects — and this was one of the things that I realized watching those first ten years — is at Apple, we were this little tiny project — it was just ten people or so when we got started — that we had to earn our right to be there. Right? Because the company was failing. We had to earn our right, so we had to work incredibly hard to earn our place in the sun.</p> <p>If we didn’t get that product out fast enough, it could crater and get canceled. So we had to do everything to fight for our lives. So as far as I was concerned, I was just worried about getting the product out, not worrying about basking in the glow of success, because I didn’t know if it was gonna be a success, given all of the problems that Apple had. All I know is we’re gonna make this thing. Steve said he’s gonna market it. Hopefully something’s gonna happen this time.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>We can’t talk about the iPod without mentioning its elegant, simple design. It is as much a work of design as it is of engineering. That obviously was part of the culture there.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Absolutely. Design, not just of the product itself, but design of the marketing, design ultimately of the retail stores. All of the different customer touch points, I was able to watch that and learn. At General Magic we learned how to do products. At Apple, you learned how to really build experiences, design experiences.</p> <p>Even the opening, the ceremony of opening a box and taking the products out and learning and using them for the first time. It’s kind of like — I don’t want to sound… because it’s nowhere near like this because I’ve had kids — but it’s that first time when you see your baby for the first time.  You have it in your hands, and you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s so precious. It’s so wonderful.” Well these products are nothing like a child, but we try to go for those kinds of emotions for people, so it feels really precious to them. Because they just spent their hard-earned money on these things. What is it gonna give to them? What kind of pleasure is it gonna give to them, and convenience and those kinds of things? So we strive for that, that experience.</p> <figure id="attachment_37071" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37071 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771-.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-37071 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771-.jpg 2280w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771--380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170916153402im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771--760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771-.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Tony Fadell during a symposium session of the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>The look of it — white — was this part of the process that you built into it?  Was it a hard sell?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: What had happened was I designed all the basic mechanical and electrical, and worked with Jeff Robbin, and we put together the interface on it. Then the look — should it have a metal back and the white face? That was on Jony Ive’s team. So Jony and his team basically figured out what it should look like on the outside in terms of the colors and everything. Apple was tending to this new direction of white behind plastic, these kinds of things, metals.</p> <p>So we were at the beginning— the genesis — of that whole design language Apple had from going all plastic. So he was responsible for those kinds of things, and then we worked, because we did that one so quickly, it came out as fast as it possibly could, whereas the next ones were much more thoughtful design. We were joined at the hip, figuring out how to make the smallest, most beautiful thing that worked as well as it could for the customer. So the first one was very different than our design for the subsequent ones.</p> <p><strong>We’ve read that Steve Jobs himself was not crazy about the idea for the ad campaign when he first saw it, the silhouette and somebody grooving to the music of their iPod.  It’s such an iconic image now</strong>.</p> <p>Tony Fadell: It’s very iconic, yeah. We were struggling as a company, and we always put the product — there were times when there were brand marketing campaigns, and then there were product marketing campaigns. And we had gone through the brand marketing when Apple was trying to get out of its rut. So Steve didn’t really always like to do too many brand campaigns. He wanted to focus on the product, because that’s what would really convert people, to sell.</p> <p>But the difference was this is a lifestyle product, and it was an experiential product, and if you could bring that emotion and passion — because it was so easy to communicate through music, and those visuals and things of that nature — that that was the whole thing of moving from product to experience ads without really showing the product, or talking about it. So it is a big leap, but it was a great leap that he and Chiat Day and the whole team there were able to create. It was an amazing campaign.</p> <p><strong>So this idea of 1,000 tunes in your pocket…</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: One thousand songs in your pocket. It’s one of the best marketing lines ever. I strive every day, when we try to market our new products, to get a tagline that good. Because it says everything in just a few words.</p> <p><strong>What were the first tunes that you played on your own iPod?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Coming from Detroit, I’m very much into the hard rock stuff — Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. That was the kind of thing that was always my go-to when I want to just hear something that gets me going. Those were the very first tunes I listened to. I listen to all kinds of stuff, but sometimes those are just those comfort classics that just get you going.</p> <p><strong>We can see where some of your energy comes from.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Absolutely. Music is a big part of my life.</p> <p><strong>But in a way, the next revolutionary product at Apple ate the first product, didn’t it? </strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah. It totally cannibalized it — the iPhone. As Steve said, “Either we eat our young, or someone else does. So which is it gonna be?” And very bold to be able to — you know, we saw the threat of cell phones and feature phones — camera phones — starting to play music. We knew everybody was carrying those, and they weren’t gonna carry two devices.</p> <p>So we went through kind of a two-and-a-half, three-year design process of trying to put a phone inside of an iPod.  That didn’t work. And then we said, “Okay, we can’t make an iPod phone. Can we make a phone with an iPod inside of it?” And then it became a little laptop with a phone inside of it. And that’s how it kind of went along, and the iPhone showed up in January of 2007. And you know, everybody was pooh-poohing it and everything. The competition was, but it obviously revolutionized the world yet again.</p> <p><strong>The track wheel was such a big part of the iPod. Wasn’t there an attempt to make that work for email and stuff?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZQeDSVIjV1g?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_10_54_01.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_10_54_01.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: We first tried to make an iPod phone which was — it was a great music player, and if you wanted to just make — so you could select a name from a list, you know — it would be easy, just like you select a song. Okay, I can select somebody and call them. But then it came down to dialing, and it was such a horrible experience. It was like an old rotary phone. I grew up for a few years on rotary phones, and you hated ’em, right? So that was the thing that put the bullet in the head of that product, was we just couldn’t make the rotary phone and text entry work.</p> <p>So then we had to go and look for another technology. Obviously, you couldn’t do keyboards. And we had this new touch screen technology, multi-touch. It was the size of a ping pong table. And Steve pulls me into this secret room and goes, “This is touch. This is multi-touch. Play with it.” And I was like, “Oh, this is cool.” And it was a big Mac. It was a projected Mac on this ping pong table, and I’m moving things around. He goes, “See that? I want you to put that on the phone.” I was like, “It’s that big!”</p> <p>So after a few weeks of learning about what it was and everything, I was like, “Yes, we can put a multi-touch on a phone. The issue, though, is we’re gonna have to start a touch screen company to do so because no one in the world had ever built any of this technology.” And we did have to do that. So not just making all of the apps and the phone itself, and all the other pieces of the puzzle, we also had to make another company just to supply the touch screen components necessary to build it. So we were doing all of this stuff at the same time it. It was an insane, awesome project to work on.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>There have been several books published in the last year or so about Steve Jobs and a film too. They all portray him as a pretty difficult personality.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: The first thing to realize is, don’t believe everything you see in movies and read in books. There is no way both my wife, who worked for Steve directly — I worked for Steve — could do that for ten years if there wasn’t some amazing stuff that came out of it. It wasn’t like we were getting whipped every day. It had nothing to do with that. We were dedicated. We were passionate. He was passionate. He wanted the best for the company, for the products, for our customers. And when you’re in that, there’s a creative tension, and he emotionally would show that passion sometimes.</p> <p>Sometimes it was, “Oh my God, this is the best thing ever!” You hear about the negatives, but you don’t hear about all the positives and all the great things he did for you — did for the individual as well as the company — and all that stuff. So it was always a balance. And those bad days were not very often, but they did happen because, typically, yeah, you might have made a mistake. Don’t do that again. Or we weren’t thinking about it right, or somebody was falling down on the job or whatever the case may be. That’s when it came out, is when someone didn’t show respect for the mission they were on. When you didn’t show respect for the rest of your teammates and for the thing we’re trying to build, that’s when there was a problem, not when we failed.</p> <p>When we tried really hard — and if we showed we tried really hard, then that was just an option, just like the “iPod phone” was a failure. No one got killed over that. It was more just, “Okay, we tried our best. We move on.” It’s when you didn’t do what was right and you failed because you didn’t put your heart and soul into it, and you let the team down. That’s when there was a problem, and that’s what people need to realize. It was very balanced, and it was very much human, passionate, and he was very helpful and all kinds of stuff. But yes, he did have his bad days. But not usually without reason.</p> <p><strong>You have to have kind of a strong core to deal with somebody who is so mercurial.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: It built up over time. Those calluses build up. There were certain things that would rub the wrong way, and you just — okay. But yeah, you had to be steadfast and strong and hold your ground, and sometimes it took a team of people to hold their ground to win over Steve with an argument. But you know, you got tempered, and you learned how to do it over time. But it wasn’t that often. It wasn’t that often.</p> <p><strong>What did your wife do for Apple?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: My wife, Danielle Lambert, she was head of human resources, first executive recruiting, then all of human resources. So she had to take care of this massively growing team that went from 3,000 people to 60,000 — 80,000 people when we left. So a massive growth, massive culture shifts, and she watched it all.</p> <p><strong>There was a concept Steve Jobs talked about, “reality distortion.” Can you tell us about that?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/czGcefuYGRY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_11_22_21.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_11_22_21.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: My wife always says, “If you want to achieve something, you have to believe it. You need to believe it to achieve it.” And Steve would believe something so passionately that — how could I say — it was educated. It was educated belief. It wasn’t just this “throw caution to the wind” belief. But he had educated belief that we could do something. And that ability to get people convinced that this was the right way to go, that it was — yeah, scary, and it’s so unconventional — but this is the right thing. That’s what made these discoveries happen, these inventions happen, because we all worked together. He didn’t come up with all the ideas. But he pushed us all to come together with the best ideas possible and sort and sift and put them together to make the best product. And you do have to distort reality if you want to change the reality we’re living in. And people are so locked into the everyday that they forget there could be a whole ’nother thing that they’re not seeing over here, and his job was to push us to see these other things. He saw them before we did, and he would push us to those unknown areas and go, “Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s risky. But we’re going to go after it. We’re going to make it happen.” And that is as much of a skill and as important to Steve as any of his other traits, maybe the most important.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>It seems to go along with what you’ve described as an all-too-human tendency to habituate, to not even see something because you’re so used to it.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Right. Exactly. This is part of staying beginners, you know. I watched our kids grow, and when they were really young they would look on the floor and they would see every little speck of dirt on the floor. They’d pick it up and they’d look at it. They’d look at every single thing, and they’re trying to learn about everything. But as they grew older, they started ignoring all that, and especially now, they’re like, “What? My room’s clean.” Like, hardly clean, but when they were young, they saw those little bits and pieces. Now they don’t see them anymore.</p> <p>And that’s what it means to say, “stay beginners,” is to remember to look at all of those little details. Don’t habituate. Go back. Peel back all of your preconceived ideas and notions and calluses that have built up over time that may cloud your vision. Go back to the essence. Feel the essence. Feel that frustration. Feel that elation. And now, apply that to your work. But you have to look deep to do that. Don’t just let habituation and the way you’ve done everything the same way all the time continue in life. You need to look other places to find that disruptive invention that could change the world.</p> <p><strong>Can you talk about your decision to leave Apple?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/EQPfQd74yTc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_37_50_06.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_37_50_06.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: To leave Apple, obviously, was really hard. I had tons of friends, growing up there. I’d met my wife there, right? We got married there, first kids there. Got to change the world twice. But at the end of the day, when we would come home, my wife and I, and we were utterly exhausted from work, and we had a one-and-a-half-year-old and a six-month-old, and we came home when they’re crying and they’re distraught because they hadn’t seen us, or what have you, or they hurt themselves, and they ran to the nanny who was taking care of them instead of my wife… That moment, then, you see that, and my wife is upset, like, “Those are my children. I don’t have time to spend with them. They don’t know who their mother is. And also their father.” We’re like, “There’s something not right here. We had a great run. Let’s cap it off. Let’s take our time with our family. We can never buy that time back, ever again. And yes, we love Apple. We love all those things. But it’s time to move on, to look at other goals in life.” And that was the whole genesis of what leaving Apple was all about. And yeah, it was tough and everything else. But at the same time, we gained a whole new part in life, which is our relationship with our children.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Thank God you didn’t wait until they were 12 and 14.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah. You wouldn’t even remember them. You wouldn’t even know who they were and all their quirks and wonderfulness.</p> <p><strong>So it sounds like working on your own nest, in a way, inspired Nest Labs.</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/fRy5fmViOYY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_09_25_10.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_09_25_10.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Tony Fadell: During the iPhone development period, my wife and I said we were going to have a family, and we said, “Let’s design a home for them.” And at that time, being green was a big part of society, and it’s hopefully even more so today and for decades and centuries from now.</p> <p>So I wanted to make a really green home for our family. I also wanted to make it connected, because this iPhone that we were developing, I was like, “Wait a second. This thing is going to become the primary interface to your world, whether you’re in your home using it or you’re outside your home. It’s going to be the primary way you’re going to interact with the physical world. How is a home going to change when it’s green and connected?”</p> <p>And that was the part of the design that led us to seeing all the problems. Given my grandfather teaching me all about the different systems of plumbing and these things, I dove deep into every system design — heating, cooling, plumbing, energy, water, all of the stuff — and started finding all of these problems, and coming from this — “Oh, I know how to build electronics and everything else” — I was like, “Oh, they must be building products the way we build them, but in these industries.” They were building them like they were built in the ’80s. They had no idea how to build next-generation consumer appliances, products for the home.</p> <p>I was like, “So… green!” Fifty percent of energy is controlled by your thermostat. Energy prices are rising and are going to continue to rise. We have a green issue. We don’t want to waste energy and create more carbon dioxide. You want to stay comfortable, too. You want to be able — it should turn down when you go away. Why should I have to turn it down and turn it up every time I enter and leave the house to do the right thing? And that’s where Nest was born out of, those frustrations with not getting the right things to make a green and connected home.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>That’s a very important idea, that looking at the big picture.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Exactly. I think about that a lot, because I remember some specific instances where Steve, because of that ability, was able to break through some amazingly hard problems that we had many people working on. You need to be able to look closely, and sometimes there’s something there that you can remove or make better or clearer. Or you look back, and you go, “Wait a second, we have too many steps. Let’s remove some and make it easier to use, or more clear.” So he had this uncanny ability. He wasn’t always mired in so many of the details, so he could really step back and not worry about the intricacies of implementation and how hard it might be. He would just look at the logical way it should be done, and what was the best thing for the customer and then push you on it, whether it was in this detail or that. There’s one perfect example. I can’t get into exactly what we were talking about, but I can tell you how we were talking about it.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170916153402if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/FH-Hx8mWyOs?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_59_35_22.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-Tony-2016-MasterEdit.00_59_35_22.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>For about three months, we were trying to break this really hard problem. And we had teams of people working on it from every single angle. And after three months, we finally presented him our options. We had five different options. None of them were great. And we’re like, “Steve, here are our options that we’ve been able to come up with.” And there was a room of 20 people. And then we’d talk through each one. And we’re like, “But none of them feel quite right.” And Steve, never being a part of this for three months — he took a step back, and he goes, “Did you ever think about it this way?” Because he took a step back and changed something way up here. He changed something way up in the system. And all of a sudden, everything got solved. And we were like — we all looked around the table at each other and go, “Oh my… he just solved the problem we’ve all been working on for three months.” And we were like… you just kind of go, “Umm.” That kind of thing. So that was his talent, and allowed us — and has really instilled in me — to do the same thing, hopefully to the same level he could. But it was really inspiring to watch.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Let’s talk about your early years. What was your life like</strong><strong> </strong><strong>growing up in Michigan?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, as a kid we moved all around the country. I went to 12 schools in 15 years so our house changed every two to three years. And so for us we would move to a new place, probably usually left our things in the boxes. We didn’t unpack usually very much, and we became chameleons in the neighborhoods and the schools we were in, just adapting with each change.</p> <p><strong>Why</strong><strong> </strong><strong>were you moving around so much?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: My dad and mom both worked. But my dad worked for Levi’s Jeans. He was a salesman, and he was a rookie first, and then he became head of sales, and we would move around wherever the sales were the best, or they needed to grow better. So he was always the guy who came in and fixed it or built it. So it was, and then as soon as it was great he would move on to the next city.</p> <p><strong>Was that hard on</strong><strong> </strong><strong>you and your brother?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, I didn’t know any different, right? You know, growing up I thought maybe that’s what all the other kids were. But, it was around second or third grade when it started to really take impact because you started building ties with people and then you leave them each time and after a couple of those times you kind of started just becoming really independent. And it was about my brother and I sticking together and that was our community, our family was our community as we moved from place to place.</p> <p><strong>Do you think that this moving around so much as a kid had an impact on the way you see things in terms of the big picture, design, your profession? Because you’re always a little bit on the outside.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: It’s a good way of putting it. Yeah, I call myself an observer. So around, probably around third or fourth grade I really became more and more, you know, observing, detached in a way from the everyday thing of the society that we were living in. So I was able to always watch things, and then when you’re in, you know, when we were in New York and then Michigan and Texas, you could always see people had different ways they dressed or they talked or whatever. But then human nature was the same and cliques were very similar in each point. Even though maybe the, you know, maybe the surface level was different. Interior, the inside of these people were the same. And so you kind of were able to then map onto the world each place you went to, oh, that’s kind of like what I saw before and what have you. And that gives you a good perspective as to which to observe the world because it’s really about people at the end of the day.</p> <p><strong>So you said your mother worked too, and what did she do?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: My mother was a hospital administrator, so she would be in charge of all the volunteers at a hospital or she would take on various other activities like that. And so, you know, my dad would move us to a place, and then she would find a job as quickly as she could, and then she would be there for a year or two and then go to the next place. But she was very much a leader of a team of people. Just as like my dad was, because he had a sales team as well.</p> <p><strong>And you had a grandfather who was very influential — talk about that.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: My grandfather John, my mom’s dad. He was an educator. He was a superintendent of the Hamtramck School District right outside, or inside, of Detroit, depending on how you define it. And he also taught special-ed kids. He, you know, had his master’s in education and so he grew up in the educational system. But also because of the, you know, the Depression Era, he also learned how to do everything himself, or his father and his grandfather taught him how to build things and create things because you had to be very, be, how can I say? You had to be able to use your hands and be very industrious, especially in Detroit, right? That was what the city was all about. And so he had this educational aspect and this builder aspect and he, he didn’t just give it to my brother and I but also all the people he worked with. He was able to take kids off the street and be able to give them a trade when they were in high school. Instead of, you know, instead of dropping out, because there were a lot of dropouts in the ’50s and the ’60s. He was able to bring them back and give them a path and he, that same training that he did, he did for my brother and I, and taught us a lot about how to build things just when we were four years old, five years old.</p> <p><strong>So what did you guys build?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, it started out really simply, you know. Oh, we would just watch, you know, and we’d hand him tools and we’d learn something. And then we got up to building birdhouses, and then we get to repairing bicycles and lawnmowers and building a soapbox derby car, and then repairing houses for, you know, parts of the house for him, then for our parents, then for our relatives and our friends down the street. So it just kind of unfolded. That, along with gardening and figuring out how to, you know, prune trees and cut the lawn and do all those things, so he really gave us that real strong work ethic and also that ability to make the world the way you wanted it to, by using your hands and your brain.</p> <p><strong>Something that I felt was very profound, you once said about your grandfather’s lessons, that you shouldn’t be afraid of things. If you know how they’re put together and how to make a birdhouse, you’re not so intimidated by things. And you also get inside them, and you see how they function.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: They worked, right. Exactly, and he put it to me very clearly, which was, “Look, a human made this. A human can repair it and make it better.” So it was, don’t worry about those things. Like, go and learn about them. We can take ’em apart, put ’em back together, and it builds confidence. So it doesn’t — it’s not like there’s some entity over in some part of the world building things and it’s a special place. No, you can do it yourself. And that’s what’s so empowering.</p> <p><strong>Did you know that you had a feeling for design at a young age, or engineering? Did you know what your path was going to be?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: I knew what my path of engineering was, and I really loved that. You know, the computer first came out for me in ’80. Yeah, 1980 is when I took my first summer school course, and I was learning on bubble cards with pencils and, and, and paper where we’d actually feed that in the machine. We didn’t even have monitors. We had paper printouts. And so I learned it, and I got hooked.</p> <p>So engineering was always along the route, and it was just another tool to go with all the things my grandfather had taught me, right? And then over time, you start to learn, well, when I’m building something, what do I want it to look like? And so that process of, of, of learning about design unfolded by doing, right? And then you go, like, wait a second. I want to make it better. I want to make it better, and you start asking a lot of questions. And the observer in me would step back and go, “What are we really trying to do?”</p> <p>So the design really happened between blossoming through my mom, who was actually — she loved to do interior design, and all the time because we were moving houses. She would have to redecorate each time, and I’d watch that process. And much to the chagrin of my mom, my grandfather would try to fix up some of the houses, and he wouldn’t do it in a very nice way. It was always the most practical way, but it wasn’t the — necessarily the most beautiful way. And you could see this contention between my grandmother and — or my grandfather and my mother going, “<em>Grrrr</em>!” “It works.” “It doesn’t look good.” “It works.” “It doesn’t look good.” So that was really embedded in me, and I used that to think about — as I was building things — “But let’s make it look good too.”</p> <p><strong>That’s fascinating.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: You should’ve seen the fights at the house, or my mom under her breath, right? Because it was Mom and Dad, or my mom and her dad. How do they work together, right? To watch the family dynamics. It was fun.</p> <p><strong>What kind of student were you, traveling around all those schools? That must’ve been very challenging.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: So student-wise, I liked the subjects I liked a lot, which were more the technical things, the science things. But at the same time, the other subjects I could kind of let fall, because when you went from school to school most people weren’t tracking you. My parents were so busy that I kind of got away with just doing the things I liked. So I would always be focused on doing the courses I loved, and then working on the computer or building something in all the other hours. So I focused on the things I loved.</p> <p><strong>Were there teachers who stood out, or were you moving around too much to really have an attachment to teachers?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: I had a great set of professors, and one in particular at the University of Michigan, which was Elliot Soloway, who taught me a lot about education and computing and basically gave me a lab. I was a sophomore or whatever. He gave me a lab, and all this equipment, and a budget, and just said, “Go ahead and build whatever you want.” So he actually was kind of my first venture capitalist in a way, just saying, “Here’s all the tools you need. Go off and create whatever you want.” And he would grade me on that. And that was like — to me, that was one of… that bond. We stay in touch even to this day and we talk. It’s a wonderful relationship.</p> <p><strong>Is it true that you started your first company in high school?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: My first company — if you can call it a company — it was an egg route in second grade and third grade, which was getting eggs from the farmer and delivering them and getting paid for it. That was that with my brother. Later on I started, with another person, a company for educational software and hardware for the Apple II. He was older. He was a senior in college — or a senior in high school or just graduated from high school. And he said, “I got this idea. I want to build this thing,” and he started. And he goes, “Would you join me?” So I was the second guy, and we created this little company in his basement selling hardware and software to the Apple II, and then creating software as well. So I got to do customer support and engineering and logistics — shipping things out and marketing, and all these kinds of things alongside him. I learned a lot to see inside the business. We’d even travel to trade shows and set up a booth and have our wares. So it was an incredible learning experience, as you could imagine, because I was doing what I loved and seeing all the other things, besides engineering, that it took to actually build a company.</p> <p><strong>What did you learn from Soloway at Michigan?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Let’s see. Elliot, he has such passion for what it was we were doing that he instilled that passion in me. He was like, “Just go for it. Make it happen.” And I would give him some wild idea, and he’d say, “Go try it.” It was that next set of just knocking down the fear of failure. Just go try anything. I could also get away from the studies I didn’t like so much and plow myself into it. He just gave you that confidence — 18, 19, whatever — and then we started a company together even. So I was acting like I was in my 30s, but I was in school. It was wonderful to have that independence.</p> <p><strong>What companies were you putting together at Michigan?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: At Michigan, I did a semiconductor company. We reverse-engineered the CPU — the central processing unit — for the Apple II, and we made it run five or six times faster, and we actually sold our chips to Apple. So that was in ’89, ’90.</p> <p><strong>Did you get an “A” on that?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: That wasn’t a class, actually. That was a summer project that I had when I was moonlighting for another company. We also started an educational software company with Elliot, to supply multimedia programs for kids for schools. Those were the two big ones in college.</p> <p><strong>So how did you decide to go to General Magic, and </strong><strong>what was your parents’ reaction to that?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: So General Magic. I was in this lab at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and I was stuck in this dark lab. Elliot was giving me everything, and then we were starting that company. So I’m sitting there. I’m starting the company, and we’re working through it, and we’re selling our wares. And a company here in California said, “We’d like to sell them for you. We’d like to distribute it.” I said okay, and Elliot knew the person, so I flew out here. And I started flying back and forth doing a business development deal with them. They ended up actually buying the software we had and selling it.</p> <p>I was reading all the time in the backs of magazines about the Macintosh. It was called <em>MacWeek</em>. Every week — because we didn’t have the Internet back then, so all you could get was this sheet. It was all the news about the Mac and Apple every week. I would read it religiously. There was a back column, and that back column was by Raines Cohen. I remember. He’s an author and he’s still around, a writer. I would read it religiously. It would tell about the team that created the Mac, and it would say where they’re at and what they’re doing now. And they started this company called General Magic. And it was totally secretive, and you could hear it was percolating out in the Valley just by reading a thing, and I’m like, “Oh my, my. My heroes are there. They’re doing something cool. We don’t know what it is, but it’s gotta be something cool. I gotta go find out what they’re working on. I gotta work there.”</p> <p>Because when I was starting that little company, I found myself being a very big fish in a very small pond, and I wasn’t learning anymore. I stagnated, and every single time was failing at everything I tried, because I hadn’t had the experience. I hadn’t seen different things, and I didn’t have really any mentors around me, because we didn’t have a startup environment in Ann Arbor in the ’90s. It just wasn’t there, at least accessible to people my age at that time.</p> <p>So I wanted to go to the fountain of knowledge. I wanted to go work for my heroes, and ultimately, I got, after a lot of perseverance, into General Magic, and I was employed at 30, or something like that, and got to work with my heroes and learn everything. I call it my Ph.D. I got my Ph.D. in the computer industry by working with the greats, like Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld and Joanna Hoffman and Susan Kare. So these people instilled design, engineering discipline and rigor, how to think about product, how to think about marketing.</p> <p>And then there was a whole ‘nother set of people there as well that ultimately — Android. Andy Rubin was at General Magic. He created Android. He had the cube just two cubes away from me. There were other people who created eBay in this company. So this was kind of this little genesis of the next generation of Silicon Valley all bonding together at General Magic. I have lifelong friends from there, so I couldn’t be more happy, making that choice and really going out on the limb to go and get them to hire me.</p> <p><strong>Is it true that your mom was upset that you weren’t going to IBM or one of those really big companies?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: I was gonna move to California, and I was gonna go work for a company. And they’re like, “What’s the company name?” And I said, “General Magic.” They go, “What? What company? I’ve never heard of it.” I’m like, “Let me explain to you. These are the greats who created the Macintosh.” “Well, how do you know? If it’s not successful, what are you gonna do? What’s gonna happen if the company goes under?” I said, “I don’t know.” And my mom’s like, “Why can’t you just go work for some nice company like IBM or something, or Microsoft?” And I was like, “No, I want to go work with my heroes. I want to go and learn from them. I don’t know everything I need to know.” So she’s crying. My dad’s just kind of — he always saw me as kind of the person who didn’t really listen, so I just did whatever I wanted. So he’s like, “Okay, here he goes again.” My mom’s crying and I teared up, because I was like — I always threw myself into things because my gut felt it.</p> <p>It wasn’t rational. A lot of the decisions I made in life, they were — how can I say? I mitigated the risk by thinking about things, making sure I thought about all the angles. But there was never a case when you knew it was the right decision rationally. You had to trust your gut. It’s just like some people when they get married. When they want to get engaged, they have to trust their gut. There’s nothing in the world that’s gonna tell you this is the right thing for your future. It’s not gonna be 100 percent guaranteed, signed on the bottom line. And so all of these decisions — big decisions, forks in the road — that I made in my life have come from my gut. That was the final nail in the coffin, to say that’s the way I’m gonna go. So when you have that emotion, then you make that decision, you have emotion afterwards. That emotion is sometimes elation, sometimes fear, sometimes, “What did I get myself into?” And each time, when I was at that fork in the road, there was always that day afterwards going, “What did I just do?” And it made you lift yourself up and go, “I’m gonna make this. I’m gonna make it a success. I can feel it.” And that’s how I make decisions and figure out where to go in life.</p> <p><strong>It’s interesting, because General Magic has been called “the most important failed company” in Silicon Valley. </strong> <strong>But your gut was right, wasn’t it, that you needed to be around like-minded people, perfectionists who are really striving to do something new?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah, absolutely. These people were always on the cutting edge in their entire career, and I was fascinated. How do they do this? And the thing with my studies and at the University of Michigan back at the time — and this was with all colleges for the most part — there were no projects in school. It was all about, “Okay, go memorize these things, go learn about these things, take tests,” but there were no practical applications of it.</p> <p>And because I had been building things with my grandfather all those years, I’m like, “I just want to build.” Learn by doing, not learn first, then do. The way you discover what it is you like to do in life is by doing first, then learning about it. You can’t learn and then go, “Oh, I’m gonna like being a lawyer,” or “I’m gonna like being a doctor.” No, you gotta get immersed in it. And then you can figure out how much you’re gonna apply yourself. Right? I’ve seen so many people get out of school. They did the right thing. They walked the line. They walked the path, and they were unhappy because they didn’t do what was most fulfilling to them. The reason being is because they didn’t do a lot in high school, even in grade school, in college, to know what they really love. So I encourage people all the time, make sure you do things before you commit to that’s your life path.</p> <p><strong>Could you tell us about the time you spent at Philips Electronics?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Philips Electronics at the time — this was in ’95 — they were partners with General Magic, building some chips, and I was working with them very closely. So I was in this tiny startup at that time, it was probably about 120 people, and we were working really, really hard. And we were failing at General Magic, and we said it had to die. We were failing, and I designed a new product. I was designing it, and I was like, ”Look, everybody. I think this is what’s gonna help save General Magic.” And everyone’s like, “That’s really interesting, Tony. Nice. But you know what? We’ve got other priorities right now. We can’t do that. Please get back to work.” And I’m like, “But this is what’s gonna help the company!” They didn’t want to hear it.</p> <p><strong>What was it?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: It was a small pocket computer. It had a small keyboard. It had a modem so you could — you know, a modem back then — you could do email. It had a touch screen, so it was like a mini little laptop. And I was like, “This is what’s gonna… people don’t want… they want a little tiny laptop that they can communicate from anywhere.” So I designed that. Nobody wanted it at General Magic, so I’m like, “Wait a second. I’m gonna go pitch it to the partners of General Magic,” and Philips was one of them. I went right to the CEO with the help of some other people, and I pitched ’em. I was 25 at the time. I had no idea what I did besides my small startup company in Ann Arbor and before. I’d never run teams or anything. And the CEO of Philips goes, “I like the idea. Let’s do it.”</p> <p>I was like, “What?” I was like, “Be careful what you wish for.” And literally the next day, because this was my gut, and I was like, “Wait a second. What did I just do?” And I was like, so nervous, so worried. I was like, now I’m gonna have to get a team of 150 people and put together this project. I have no idea if I can do it. So I once again threw myself in — I just rose up, and I said, ”I’m gonna use my resources and everything to build this.” So that was great. I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna get over this decision.”</p> <p>Then, the very first day I walk into the Philips offices they asked for a drug test. I was like, “What? A drug test?” And I was like, “Wait a second. I can’t hire anybody in Silicon Valley if you ask for that.” And then I go, “I’m gonna make you a deal. I’ll take the drug test, but if I pass…” — which I did, obviously — “If I pass, you will not require anybody in my team that I hire to take the drug test.” That was the deal. And they said okay, because that was the chain of trust. So I was able to clear that, so that was like, “Whoa, wait. This is a big old company!”</p> <p>The next thing, I get into my office. It was built in 1950. It was dark paneling. Every single one was like these little trophy rooms. And no one talked to each other. It was like <em>shhh</em>. You know, you came from a place where there’s cubes and people and they were like gophers everywhere coming out of these cubes. “Hey, what’s going on?” Blah, blah, blah. Just this lifeblood of people. And then, you’re in this little tiny office, gonna defeat the world, and nobody’s around. And you’re like, “What did I do?”</p> <p>Well anyway, it got a lot better, and I helped to change a bunch of the culture and everything, because I’m like, “Knock down the walls. Put up cubes. Let’s get some life in here.” But Philips really was —it was old, and we created a startup inside this company, but whenever we went outside, it was like we were talking different languages. Even though they spoke Dutch and English, it was like we were talking Swahili or something. They just didn’t understand. Like when we were saying, “Well, we need open offices,” or “We need this,” or “We need great marketing for that,” all they’d want to do is sell TVs.</p> <p>So that’s where I learned in life that even with the most resources, you can design and build anything, but if you don’t have the right team behind you to sell and market it, and really do it, you’re not gonna have a great success. So we were a critical success in the industry for what we built, but we were a failure from a business perspective because we didn’t know how to sell it.</p> <p><strong>What did Apple see in you that you got that call from them to come and work on a new project? Why you?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Why me? Well, interestingly enough, there was a person who was a consultant at General Magic that we really tried to hire and I really liked him. He was a mentor of mine, and his name was Ali Alasti. We bonded over the nine months he was contracting. It was like nine months he was contracting in General Magic, and we stayed in touch all the time after that. And we would have lunch every year or every six months or something, just check in. And I tried, as I was building companies and stuff for different teams, I tried to always pull him in, because I wanted him to help, because I thought he was such a great guy.</p> <p>Ali also worked at Next, where Steve (Jobs) was. Between his two stints at Apple he had Next. So he knew a lot of the Apple folks because they were at Next. So lo and behold, as my startup in 2000 — because of the Internet crash and everything, we couldn’t get any money — I had lunch with him. One was to try to get him on board, but two was to find out how he was doing. And I was also lamenting, like, “Oh, I’m trying to find money for this startup. I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna have to figure out something.”</p> <p>The very next day, Ali had lunch with a guy named Jon Rubinstein, and Jon was at Apple, and he was running all of hardware at Apple. And Jon asked, “Who do you know who knows handheld products? I need a consultant to come in and do some design for us.” And he’s like, “Well, this is serendipity. Yesterday, I was meeting with this guy that I’ve known for a decade. You should talk to him. His startup’s failing. He’s got a team there. They’ve been building digital, little devices and stuff.” And a week later, I was on the ski slopes getting ready in Vail to get on the chairlift, and, “Hello, this is Jon Rubinstein.” I didn’t know who he was, and then the conversation started, and lo and behold, the iPod came out less than a year later.</p> <p><strong>By then, because of the incredible success of the iPod, did you have more confidence that the iPhone really was gonna be a game changer?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah. So we had, we had the wind at our — at our backs, but we were going again against very big cell phone competition, right? Nokia, Sony, Motorola. We were just throwing it all out there and we’re going for broke just like we did with the iPod. So we felt really good about it, but yet we were always concerned. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Be humble. Did the right thing. Always be beginners, and just know that you don’t know a lot of things, and don’t go in there with bravado.</p> <p>And that was the biggest thing is we didn’t go in there with bravado from an engineering and design perspective. We tried to make sure we understood the risks we were getting into and mitigate them along the route. But they were big risks. But it allowed us to do something, and the whole company to get behind it, as opposed to the iPod, which — and the company was failing at the time, right? When very few people wanted to get behind. So it’s much easier when you have the wind at your back and everybody wants to help. So luckily we had that.</p> <p><strong>That phrase “stay beginners.” You’ve said that in various speeches. What’s that about?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Stay beginners? That’s a term that I learned from Steve. It was all about understanding that when you were in the business that we’re in, we get so caught up in our own lingo. We get so caught up in trying to impress the people down the hall about our engineering prowess, or our design prowess, that we forget about the people who we’re selling to. We forget about the person who just unwrapped that box, and trying to understand how it works and making it so simple for them.</p> <p>So if you take really powerful technology, and wrap it in a very simple and clear interface and simple ways of using it, you can empower people and make those beginners feel like they’ve 10X-ed their capabilities. They have superpowers now. So if you could always make it accessible to those beginners, then you can empower them, and you’re gonna capture a whole huge audience of people who want those superpowers too. You’re not just impressing the geek down the hall.</p> <p>So “staying beginners” was making sure you wore that beginner hat each day when you came in, and remembering those customers, those people who want to be empowered, and giving them the tools they can use to succeed and feel good about it. They don’t feel frustrated. That is when you’ve created a great product, is empowering people with something they’ve never seen before and they feel like they’re geniuses.</p> <p><strong>We’ve read that right before the iPhone was ready to come out, Steve Jobs took a look at it and said, “No, I don’t love it.” And you had to go back and do more design stuff at a very late stage.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah, that happened countless times. So it happened in the iPod days, whether it was hardware or software. There were certain things where we would add certain new hardware components two weeks before we launched the product and had to ship it three weeks later in full production. Like, we had to change the hardware. You could change software days ahead of the launch in people’s hands, and now you can change it even after they have it in their hands. But back then, you couldn’t do that. So Steve’s like, “We’re gonna change the software. We’re gonna change the hardware.” We’re like, “Wait a second. We can’t do all this in two weeks.” But we did it. And it happened time and again and time and again.</p> <p><strong>So that was a guy that trusted his gut. You guys are up against the wall, and he’s saying, “I just don’t love it.”</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Absolutely. And it was just that. And the thing is, it’s not just him. It was also part of the team. We all felt it. Everybody saw it, but we all wanted to ship, but he was the guy who allowed us to say, “No, it’s not right. We need to get it right. What can we do to get close enough to perfection?” So again, trusting your gut, even though logic tells you, “Ship it. Get it out there,” or “Everyone’s gonna be disappointed if we don’t get it out.” No. That’s when your gut says there’s something wrong here. You gotta tap into it, fix it, then go, so that it’s not a disaster. Right?</p> <p><strong>The iPhone was quite expensive at first, and it seemed to be maybe just for a certain class of people. Were you convinced that the price would come down and that it would be adopted by the world?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, in technology in general, you start with the best technology you can, groundbreaking things, disruptive technology. And usually, it always is expensive because there’s not enough volume in it. But we had seen, through our diligent engineering and design and working together, we moved the iPod from $399 all the way down to $49 and everything in between. And that was over a course of four years. So we were able to go off, again that confidence, and say we’ll figure this out.</p> <p>And the first time, when you ship products and hardware, you don’t make any money. You’re lucky if you break even. You see your next one and your next one. So when you commit to something like this, and it’s the future, you’re like, “I’m gonna invest as much as I possibly can,” and you know that we have the track record of bringing things down over time. So it came to fruition yet again.</p> <p><strong>There’s some mythology about the iPod and how it came to happen, that Steve Jobs said, “Go out and find me the man who is going to put this together. I already know exactly what it is.” Can you tell us exactly how that came about?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Sure. There’s some people who believe that there was a grand master plan at that point, that we were going to change the world with the iPod and digital music downloads and video downloads, and this was all crafted in the year 2000, the year 2001, and we were just going to roll it out. That’s not how it happened at all.</p> <p>It really happened by virtue of the CD player actually getting integrated into a Mac, and people started playing tunes on a Mac, and then from there they were like, “Wait a second, we could take those tunes off and create mix CDs.” Okay, so they started making mix CDs. So they’d rip the tracks off the CD, put them in iTunes, and then print a new disk with those — just like you made mix cassette tapes.</p> <p>Then, they were like, “Wait a second. I can only fit 10 or 20 songs on that CD. Why can’t I get more songs?” And mp3 players started at the time. And all these mp3 players were tiny. They either held 15 songs, or they held 100 songs, but it took a day to put the songs on it. All of these things were wrong with them.</p> <p>That’s when they contacted me, saying, “We’re looking at all these mp3 players. We want to let people take their tunes on the go from iTunes, but they’re all bad. We think there’s an Apple way of doing it. Can you design that for us?” So that happened. So that’s when the iPod came out, which was 1,000 songs in your pocket. Then, from there, we’re like, “Well, what can we do next?”</p> <p>And we’re like, “Well, we can put more songs.” We did that. We can make it a little smaller. Made it better. Better, we started that. And then we go, “Wait a second. It’s now time we can put photos on it, because we’ll put a color screen on it because it’s cheap and we’ll put a color screen, and we can store all those photos.” So we put photos on it. Then we go, “Wait a second. People want to digitally download music. The labels are failing because everyone’s stealing music. Let’s give them an alternative where they can spend a dollar a song, get the song they love, and put it on — they don’t have to rip the CD — put it on the iPod.” They could just download it really quick, because there was enough Internet bandwidth to the home, and there was enough storage, and the music companies really wanted to sell their music digitally. They hated it before that, but now they were willing, because they were losing so much money.</p> <p>So then the music store was created. Then, after that, the video store was created, and we made video iPods, and so on and so forth. So all of these unfoldings happened over time as we ran into a new problem and a new problem. We didn’t have the cash, the team — the technology even — to be able to have a grand master plan back then and just implement it. It was literally heads down, seeing the next problem, solving it, solving it, solving it.</p> <p><strong>Did you see Disney’s Tomorrowland and the Monsanto House of the Future when you were a boy?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yeah. In 1977, ’76, something like that, I went to Disney World with my parents and my grandfather. That was a long time ago. I remember being in awe of seeing this exhibit, and I think the exhibit was actually created in the late ‘60s, so it was kind of getting old and tattered, and it was the vision of the future, where it was one button and your food would pop out of this weird container, already prepared.</p> <p>It was very space-age, because everything was about space — right — when it was created. And everything just magically happened for you. I was drawn in by that, but what’s really interesting is, in the ‘80s, that same vision got sold to us again from various other companies, and then in the ‘90s, it was again, and then in the 2000s, it was yet again, and nothing of this stuff ever materialized.</p> <p>And it’s like, someone’s selling the wrong dream. They’re going for something that is not about families, and not about home and how it works. It’s something — some tech geek wizardry. It has nothing to do with how we live. And I was like, “Let’s rewrite what the future of the home looks like.” And it started with the humble thermostat.</p> <p><strong>It’s been written that you focused on sort of unloved objects. So the thermostat is just some weird-looking thing that everybody’s put up with and been habituated to for decades.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Exactly. In the ‘50s, when the first Henry Dreyfuss design came out for a thermostat, it was iconic. It was actually beloved. People were like, “It’s easy to use. It looks nice on my wall,” for that period of time and everything. And then what happened, over time, is no one cared about design. They just cared about cost. They didn’t even care about usability. And I said, “Wait a second…” That’s how they became unloved, because no one put any love in them. And therefore, if you don’t put love and passion into your product, no one’s going to extract that out of them. So we put tons of love and attention into our first product, and guess what? It came back 10-X from the community. So that was what’s wonderful to see. So you can take an unloved thing and turn it into something lovable by adding the love, by adding the passion to it.</p> <p><strong>Do you call yours a smart thermostat? It figures out when you come and go.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: You know, people think that “smart” — that was the other thing that Monsanto — everything was about “the smart home,” and every time I heard the word “smart” attached to anything, it means it’s pretty dumb, because no one knows what it really does. They just add “smart” as a prefix to say, “Oh, you must buy this, because it’s smart.” If they can’t tell you what it does and why it does it, don’t buy it just because it says “smart.” So I wanted to make sure that we weren’t “smart.” What we were doing was, we were learning. The way you know more about your surroundings is by learning about them.</p> <p>So all the thermostat did was very simply watch. You know, in the morning you turn it to a certain temperature. When you leave you turn it down. When you come home, you turn it up and go to bed again. So just a few days like that and we were like, “Wait a second, you’ve already told us how you like it in your house. You’ve just showed us in three days. Why do you have to program?” So we just learn the things you tell us to do, and we just do it like any good assistant, just record it back. It’s that simple.</p> <p>But everybody else was coming from the programming: “Tell us what it is. Make a structured schedule.” No one knows what their schedule is, especially in a busy household. So why can’t the assistant learn and adapt as you change? And that was the — besides making it beautiful and loved again, let’s make it not “smart.” Let’s make it thoughtful. Let’s make it an assistant in your home.</p> <p><strong>I think you’ve also used the word delightful.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Delightful.</p> <p><strong>It is really fun. It’s a fun thing to look at.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: It’s fun to look at. It’s fun to interact with. We have babies using them. We get videos all the time of kids using them, saying, “Look at the leaf!” to try to get better energy conservation. We’ve had eight-year-olds show videos of them installing it. It was like a big deal, just like we talked about, the ceremony of unboxing and this little jewel that’s so precious. Kids are actually installing them themselves with wires and stuff. If my grandfather could only see all these eight-year-olds putting in thermostats around the world, I think he would be proud. But then we had 80-year-old people doing it, and it’s everything between, and it was just a thermostat that no one cared about just a year previous. No one cared. So it it’s very heartwarming to see — again — empowerment.</p> <p><strong>Any homeowner will tell you that the most despised appliance is the smoke detector — the old-fashioned one — which really creates havoc.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Especially if it cries wolf too often, and then you just ignore it. And you know what happens. That’s when danger happens. You either rip it off the wall because you’re frustrated or you just don’t listen to it. And we’re like, “There’s got to be a better way, especially because it’s mandated. You have to put them in your home.” So what did most manufacturers do? Every manufacturer before us? They just made the cheapest thing possible to comply with the law, not something you would like. Not something that would be helpful. Just something to comply with the law.</p> <p>We said, ‘We’ve got a better way. Let’s make it teach you what’s going on. Let’s not always cry wolf. Let’s give you a heads-up.” And you go, “Hey, we smell something. Something doesn’t quite smell right here.” Just like when you’re in the kitchen and maybe your husband’s cooking. You go, “Something’s not quite right here, honey. You might want to check.” And you go, “Oh yeah, I’m making some cookies. They’re probably burning.” Right? Well, we try to be that assistant again, that thoughtful assistant saying, “Something’s not quite right,” before we go blaring, so that you can take care of it before it goes off and then you just get frustrated. So those are the kind of hopefully delightful design details we put into our products that people actually really experience.</p> <p><strong>It seems like you have a tremendous amount of potential to transform the home, one object at a time.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: One object at a time.</p> <p><strong>Do you work ten years ahead, 20 years ahead? How do you foresee the home 30 years from now?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: I’m trying to make sure that the home doesn’t turn into just a bunch of screens and gadgets everywhere. Home is about socializing with your friends and family, inside of this structure or outside of the structure. It’s about the people. It’s not about the things in the home, or especially not displays and gadgets.</p> <p>So my goal is to try to make all of these assistant capabilities and all these things to be blended into the walls. You know, when we first got electricity and gas, you could see all the pipes running inside the structures, because people retrofitted that onto the structure when electricity was invented. But then over time, what happened? They all got buried into the walls, right? It became unseen. You just have one little control, but you don’t know where all this stuff is.</p> <p>My hope is that’s going to be the same with this technology. It’s going to recede into the structure. To have that technology in every home, but you’re not going to see it. You may feel it, but you’re not going to see it. It’s not going to be visual clutter. It’s not going to be something that everybody runs to and then just gathers around the digital hearth. Trying to keep everybody connected and talking to each other, not with screens between them.</p> <p><strong>How does the culture at Nest differ from Apple?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Well, the one thing I have learned at Philips, at Apple, any big company, is that there’s no one culture at any one of those big companies. Even inside of them, they are made up of many subcultures, and one team works this way, another team works this way. This team likes to have these kinds of events, this team…</p> <p>So it’s not the same in big companies. So that’s the first thing to know. So how are we different than, maybe let’s say the iPod team? The teams that I knew — right? — and the management structure of that. There was a lot of things we brought from there, attention to design and detail, emotional experiences, those kinds of things. So we brought all that. And the diligent hard work ethic and making sure we get it right and out the door.</p> <p>But at the same time, we also have a different culture. Where Apple was so secretive that you couldn’t even talk with your trusted teammates about the things you were working on, and we saw that breed a lot of discontent. And it went into the work, and then ultimately into the workers — right? — that they didn’t feel good about that, at least the things that I saw. So I wanted to make sure we eliminated that here, and we are much more transparent and open about certain things. So that was it. The other one was giving credit, and giving credit to people for their ideas.</p> <p>A lot of times it was, whatever idea you had, it ultimately became Steve’s idea. What we wanted to do was make sure we share and say — in my meetings I’m like, “That’s an awesome idea. I like that.” You know, making sure. Saying not just, “Hey, let’s build on that idea,” as opposed to, “Oh, that’s the shittiest idea I’ve ever heard,” and then tomorrow, “I got this great idea,” which was the same thing. So those are the kind of things that we try to change up, because it’s really about people, and that’s where you get their best effort, is through their passion and through their ideas, not just yours.</p> <p><strong>You made a big sale of Nest Labs to Google. Could you talk about that?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: It was two years ago this week, or next week, that we closed the deal to sell Nest to Google. And I had been in the Valley now, at that point, almost 23 years or so, and I’ve seen the ups and downs in the cycles of the market and how things go. And I also know what it takes to make a really big influential company, especially when you’re trying to do something so complex and integrated in what we’re trying to do.</p> <p>You need to have strong arms around you to help you grow and build that and be patient, and investors are not always like that. The Street, as we know — Wall Street, whatever, venture capitalists — they’re fickle. They run hot and they run cold. You need somebody who’s going to be there. And we had to think whether we’re going to take more outside money or if we were going to join up, get married with another company.</p> <p>So we had both things going, and we had all these different options, and at the end of the day, I said, “What we want to do is, it’s not about the money. It’s about the mission and who has the technology, who has the patience, who has these things to make the mission successful and help us grow.” And that was, naturally, Larry (Page) and Google.</p> <p><strong>You had already dated, as it were.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Yes, we had dated. We got married two years ago, but we had dated for about two years before that, because Google was an investor in our company. Google Ventures was an investor. We were cautious about that, because we were worried that they were going to take our ideas, but that was never the case. So we let them in, and then actually we let them in the next round to invest again. And it was such a great relationship that we got to date and learn a lot about each other. So the marriage happened in a very proper way, as opposed to what typical corporate marriages happen, which is, it’s over a weekend. You know, “Let’s go to Vegas. I meet you for the first time, 24 hours — let’s get married.” That’s not the right way to do these kinds of things, in my experience.</p> <p><strong>There was some hue and cry about privacy issues, and that has been somewhat controversial. Could you tell us your thoughts about that?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Privacy, security — as we become more and more digital, we’re sharing so much data with various services, with others, and people get concerned about what’s happening with my personal data. And when you go into the home, it’s a whole ‘nother level. And why is that?</p> <p>People today have cell phones with everything on it, all their pictures of their family, all of these different things, but they understand the benefits of the smartphone really well, and so they’re willing to take those risks, because it’s so empowering, right? It’s that superpower in their hands. The other thing about it is, they made the personal choice. That device is theirs. They manage that device. They know what they’re doing, what they’re not doing. They can self-select. When you put technology in a home with your kids, with your spouse — whomever, your family members — now you’ve put that technology on their heads, whether they liked it or not, and now, all of a sudden, they don’t get to choose the security and privacy the way you would do with a personal device.</p> <p>And so we have to be ever-diligent to understand that we need to be invited into a home and earn trust, right? When you knock on somebody’s door, they may not even open the door, but over time, maybe they’ll open the door, invite you in the foyer, maybe sit down and have a drink, maybe have dinner. Maybe even stay as a guest, right? But that’s an unfolding that happens. So the only way that happens is with trust that’s built over time, and that requires security and privacy, right? And to understand when you are welcome and when you’re not.</p> <p>So for us, that is a big part of what we do, not just in our marketing, but in our technology, right? So we have teams that run around looking for problems in our products. And they’re both looking at it from the inside out and the outside in, trying to break in, so we have people trying to break into our technology, that we pay to make sure that we keep that data secure and private. Because your home is sacred, and we need to be trusted for you to let us in.</p> <p><strong>As successful as the products have been, there was a cranky little piece in <em>The New York Times</em> a few weeks ago about a bug in the thermostat.</strong> N<strong>obody’s perfect, obviously.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Right. No person’s perfect, no technology is perfect, and remember the first airliners, the first electricity. There are pioneers who go and they take the risks, and they move on. As long as they understand they have a partner. I know I hope people see us as that. Nest is trying to do its absolute, utter best. We can’t be perfect, but what we can do is, as soon as we find a problem, fix it as fast as possible and then communicate what’s going on. Luckily, we were able to fix it and all those other things. Unfortunately, that reporter had that issue that day, and there’s nothing around that, because some very small number of people were affected.</p> <p>But yet, that’s how impactful these technologies can be on homes, and we have to be ever-vigilant. That’s why we have 24-by-seven customer support. Most other companies have no 24-by-seven support. You can always go and work ours, because we know your home’s always working, or it always should be working. We have to be there to support you if it’s not.</p> <p><strong>Tell us about the idea of the “Internet of Things.” Is that something you relate to?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: The Internet of Things, I think, is a horrible term for individuals, for people. It’s a great term for industry, because people can sell more chips and more networking gear, more communications and all that other stuff. But that’s not the right way to communicate to customers. Internet of Things. It’s an Internet-enabled toaster. So? What? Why do I care? Oh, by the way, this toaster allows you to see when the toast is burning or stop the toast from burning, blah, blah, blah. Then people go, “Oh, I like that.” But they don’t know it’s connected. So the Internet of Things term is, I think, bandied about and used very scarily, in many ways, for the mass audience.</p> <p>That said, it is a very powerful technology. And why is that? When you can start to have a nervous system to each one of these devices, you can all of a sudden start doing things that no one’s ever seen before. Just like the thermostat could learn your behaviors, well, these other products could learn their behaviors, allow you to get access to them from anywhere.</p> <p>So this is not something that’s going to go away. This is like betting against electrification of the home, right? Putting electricity in the home — if you are saying, “No, it’s never going to happen,” or cars were never going to happen, horse and buggy isn’t — you are on the wrong side of that bet. So because of the advances in communications, CPU power, memory, interfaces, really low cost, these — because of smartphone technology, it’s going to be in everything. Whether it’s a consumer product, an industrial product, a commercial product, you’re going to see it everywhere. And it’s not going to go away. Don’t bet against the Internet of Things.</p> <p><strong>You’ve talked about having this open culture at Nest. Is there a dichotomy between this value of collaboration and teamwork, and another concept in management, the idea of giving people time to think and — as we said in the ‘70s — actualize themselves.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Sure. Like I said, in Philips I was stuck in this little office. I could think all day long, but I needed people to help, right? And then it swung all the way to these shared spaces, everybody talking, right? There’s a fine balance. Sometimes you need to think. Sometimes you need to collaborate. You have to go back and forth. That’s the process of iteration, right?</p> <p>So in these open environments, because they’re physical spaces, it needs to be open. So what do people do? They put on headphones today, or they go to — we have individual little rooms or offices that people can check out and go and think, or have a private phone call or a conversation or whatever else, and they can get back out and go back to their desk.</p> <p>So we try to make sure we have lots of private spaces as well as public spaces for people to go back and forth from, depending on where they are in their mind space for the day to get their work done. Obviously, you could do the same thing at home — go back home — so we’ll allow people, if they really have something they have to do that day and they have to focus, “Okay, stay home that day.” Focus on it. But we all know it’s not always easy to focus at home, either. So it’s a nice balance though, a balance between open and closed.</p> <p><strong>The team and the individual.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: The team and the individual and the physical space.</p> <p><strong>We’d like to ask a little more about Steve Jobs, his legacy and his impact on you. We had the pleasure of having him address the Academy of Achievement in 1982. He told the young people to have different experiences, traveling, not the same kind of ordinary experiences as everyone else going right through school.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: That’s right. This goes back to my comment, which is “Learn by doing.” Learn through experiences. People say, “What are you going to get so-and-so for their birthday?” I said, “I don’t want to get them things. I want them to have experiences. I want to enable them to have experiences.” And this goes back to Steve’s thing, which is the way you open up your knowledge of the world is by discovering it and learning about it, not through books, but by being there. Talking to the people. Going to the grocery store and seeing how people just live day to day in those different places and learning where it’s at, and having those conversations.</p> <p>So you absolutely have to get out of your day-to-day — the, “Okay, now I wake up. I brush my teeth. I do this. I go to school. I do these things that people told me to do and get back and then I come home. I have dinner. I do my homework.” You’re not going to learn about the world. Your world is going to be your home and your school and the people that are in there and those experiences. That’s all you’re bound to. The world is a vast — infinitely vast — place if you look, and you need to take the time and get out there on a limb.</p> <p>Yes, sometimes it’s scary. Go to a foreign country alone. Sometimes a lot of people go in groups, and they go in groups because, you know, that’s safety in numbers. But you know what, you’re just a bubble inside of this community. You’re not really interacting with it. So I actually went on two trips in my 20s. I went for three months to South America with just a backpack and myself.</p> <p>I didn’t have a plan or anything. I just went from place to place learning about different cultures, different things. Did the same thing through the Middle East, to try to get all of those interesting experiences to help me become a better person, in a way, from both ethics and morals and learn about different things, how people live. But also different experiences that could be inspiration for your next design.</p> <p>You know, going to Paris with my family between Apple and Nest allowed me to actually see that all of these homes had problems, right? Because we lived in different homes in France, in Spain, in Hawaii, in Latin America. They all had the same problems. I’m like, no one saw this. It was another one of those things that said, “Oh my God, this is something that needs to get fixed.” And it was only if I would have got out of my element — get out of Silicon Valley, which is a wonderful place — to actually gain that perspective and that experience, to then galvanize you and get that gut feeling to move forward with confidence.</p> <p><strong>Another thing Steve Jobs told the students was that they are inheriting the responsibility of being a guardian of the earth for future generations, if there is an earth in future generations.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: There will be an earth. Will there be humans? That’s a different question. The earth will be here.</p> <p><strong>Do you relate to that concept, too?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Absolutely. I felt it even more strongly with Steve’s passing. When Steve passed, he passed the baton. Who were the people who worked with him? Who were the ones who really understand how he worked? Who were the ones who learned it’s our job to then teach? We learned. He taught us. Now it’s our turn to be teachers, to teach the next generation.</p> <p><strong>Did you always feel destined to achieve what you have? Did you know you were going to be able to pull it off, or did it just come together?</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: The way I always said it was, “Don’t look down. As you climb this mountain, don’t look down, because it can get scary.” And go, “Wait a second. If I fail, I could fall off this mountain. Just keep looking up and keep plodding.” Sometimes you’re going to go down a little bit, and you’re going to come back up. Go down a little bit, but don’t look down. Just keep looking up. Even if you’re going down, look up and be optimistic, because that’s the only way that we’re going to change the world, is by people. It’s not going to be machines that change the world. People are going to change the world, and you have to keep looking up and don’t be afraid of falling off whatever perch you’re on. Continue to just plod along and look up.</p> <p><strong>Well, that’s a great place to end. Thank you.</strong></p> <p>Tony Fadell: Okay.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Tony Fadell Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>28 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14.jpg" data-image-caption="A group portrait of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, with some of his executives who designed the iPhone. From left: Philip Schiller, iPod Boss Tony Fadell, Design Chief Jonathan Ive, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall, and Eddy Cue. Jobs announced the iPhone during a keynote presentation at the MacWorld conference in San Francisco. The iPhone is set to revolutionize mobile phone technology, combining the capabilities of a cell phone, an iPod, and an Internet communications device with a revolutionary touch-screen design." data-image-copyright="iPhone Announcement" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fad30_14-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1z5o7202.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod and the co-founder and CEO of startup Nest Labs, wants to get back to doing what he does best: being a designer. That’s one of the reasons why Fadell and his team have sold Nest — their young startup that makes smart thermostats and sleek smoke detectors — to Google for an eye-opening $3.2 billion, or roughly 5.8 percent of Google’s total cash. In an interview with Gigaom following the announcement of the deal, Fadell told us how he wants to refocus on designing product experiences instead of spending his time on scaling and infrastructure — something that’s long been at the core of massive Google. It’s certainly “not about laptops and phones,” joked Fadell; it’s more about a marriage of hardware, software and services, he explained. And the deal has been under discussion for a long time, he noted, Sergey Brin was the one who originally told Google Ventures to start a discussion with Nest." data-image-copyright="1z5o7202" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1z5o7202-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1z5o7202-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.63815789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rem.jpg" data-image-caption="October 9, 2014: Nest CEO and Founder Tony Fadell, OMA Founding Partner Rem Koolhaas and Vanity Fair Contributing Editor and Moderator Paul Goldberger speak during "Design in the Digital Age" at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. The panel discussed the role of technology in architecture and design, as well as differing attitudes toward architecture around the world. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)" data-image-copyright="Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit - Day 2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rem-380x243.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rem-760x485.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mg_0730.jpg" data-image-caption="May 12, 2014: Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson, Canva Chief Evangeliest Guy Kawasaki, Nest Chief Executive Tony Fadell, former Google Vice President Megan Smith, Samasource Founder and Chief Executive Leila Janah, and Cisco Vice President of Emerging Technologies Jim Grubb were brought together as part of Virgin’s “Virgin Disruptors” series of talks. (Guru Khalsa)" data-image-copyright="mg_0730" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mg_0730-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mg_0730-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-After-Party-238.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell and his wife, Danielle Lambert, with Academy delegate Ismael Cruz Córdova at the Banquet of the Golden Plate dinner during the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Evening After Party 238" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-After-Party-238-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-After-Party-238-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-headshot.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell" data-image-copyright="Fadell headshot" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-headshot-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Fadell-headshot-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest_tony_fadell_and_matt_rogers.jpg" data-image-caption="January 14, 2014: Tony Fadell, Nest's CEO and former iPod lead at Apple, and Matt Rogers, Nest's co-founder and fellow Apple alumni. Google announced yesterday its $3.2 billion cash purchase of Nest." data-image-copyright="nest_tony_fadell_and_matt_rogers" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest_tony_fadell_and_matt_rogers-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest_tony_fadell_and_matt_rogers-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69605263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest001.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell" data-image-copyright="nest001" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest001-380x265.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest001-760x529.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5800415800416" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115.jpg" data-image-caption="October 2013: Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest, in the company's offices in Palo Alto, California. On January 13, 2014, Google said it would pay $3.2 billion to buy Nest Labs, which develops high-tech versions of devices like thermostats and smoke detectors. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)" data-image-copyright="Tony Fadell" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115-241x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/w1-googlenest-a-20140115-481x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break-.jpg" data-image-caption="Academy delegates Jeremy Fishel, Wren Dougherty, Lucas Brown, Laurie Segall, Eric Kuhn, Samantha Barry, Rahul Rekhi, Alex Chaitoff and Bryan Laulicht meet Tony Fadell between symposium sessions during the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Symposium 626 Break" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break--380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-626-Break--760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0511756569848" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell.jpg" data-image-caption="December 4, 2012: Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO, Nest Labs." data-image-copyright="Tony Fadell, Founder & CEO, Nest LabsDate 4 December 2012" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell-362x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell-723x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/7eb63613-c713-4722-b47c-02b2951b3752.jpg" data-image-caption="June 17, 2015: Nest CEO Tony Fadell talks about his company's product updates during a press conference in San Francisco. Google's Nest Labs is releasing new versions of its surveillance video camera and talking smoke detector as part of its attempt to turn homes into yet another thing that can be controlled and tracked over the Internet. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)" data-image-copyright="Tony Fadell" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/7eb63613-c713-4722-b47c-02b2951b3752-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/7eb63613-c713-4722-b47c-02b2951b3752-760x427.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-772-Fadell-Barry-.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell addresses Academy student delegates during a symposium session of the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Symposium 772 Fadell Barry" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-772-Fadell-Barry--380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-772-Fadell-Barry--760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: Fadell is also the co-founder of Actev Motors, a young, Mountain View, California-based company creating all-electric smart go-karts for children. Fadell’s work with Actev Motors is a passion project that ties to both his childhood interest in automobiles and his other full-time job: parenting. (© Rebecca Wilkowski Photography)" data-image-copyright="actev_motors_11a9192" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/actev_motors_11a9192-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771-.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell addresses Academy student delegates during a symposium session of the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Symposium 771" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771--380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-771--760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.88684210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fadell-e1389994929481.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell" data-image-copyright="fadell-e1389994929481" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fadell-e1389994929481-380x337.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/fadell-e1389994929481-760x674.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest.jpg" data-image-caption="By 2015, Nest had expanded its line, increasing the functionality and ease of use of the Thermostat and developing new products, such as Nest Protect, the company’s smoke and carbon monoxide detector, and the Nest Cam security camera. “Our vision was to create a thoughtful home — a home that takes care of itself and the people in it," said Fadell. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)" data-image-copyright="(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nest-760x427.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.25" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member George Lucas presents the Golden Plate Award to Tony Fadell during the 2014 International Achievement Summit's Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Evening GPR Fadell Lucas 107" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Evening-GPR-Fadell-Lucas-107-608x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="October 25, 2011: Nest Labs today announced that it has created the Nest Learning Thermostat™. Nest learns from your behaviors, preferences and surroundings to create a custom heating and cooling schedule, keeping you comfortable when you’re home and conserving energy when you’re away. Former Apple SVP of the iPod division Tony Fadell and former iPod and iPhone lead engineer Matt Rogers. “It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls 10 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn’t kept up with advancements in technology and design,” said Tony Fadell, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nest Labs." data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - October 25, 2011: Nest Labs today announced that it has created the Nest Learning Thermostat™. Nest learns from your behaviors, preferences and surroundings to create a custom heating and cooling schedule, keeping you comfortable when you’re home and conserving energy when you’re away. Former Apple SVP of the iPod division Tony Fadell and former iPod and iPhone lead engineer Matt Rogers. “It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls 10 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn’t kept up with advancements in technology and design,” said Tony Fadell, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nest Labs.">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell_and_Matt_Rogers.jpg" data-image-caption="October 25, 2011: Nest Labs today announced that it has created the Nest Learning Thermostat. Nest learns from your behaviors, preferences and surroundings to create a custom heating and cooling schedule, keeping you comfortable when you’re home and conserving energy when you’re away. Pictured are former Apple SVP of the iPod division Tony Fadell and former iPod and iPhone lead engineer Matt Rogers. “It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls ten percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn’t kept up with advancements in technology and design,” said Tony Fadell, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nest Labs." data-image-copyright="Tony_Fadell_and_Matt_Rogers" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell_and_Matt_Rogers-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony_Fadell_and_Matt_Rogers-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry-.jpg" data-image-caption="Academy delegate and journalist Samantha Barry interviews Tony Fadell during a symposium session of the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Saturday Symposium 779 Fadell Barry" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry--380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp-Saturday-Symposium-779-Fadell-Barry--760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell.jpg" data-image-caption="2011: Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest Labs." data-image-copyright="2011: Tony Fadell, Founder and CEO of Nest Labs." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Co-FounderCEO.Tony_.Fadell-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/google-knew-glass-wasnt-even-close-to-ready-but-sergey-brin-pushed-it-out.jpg" data-image-caption="Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, wears Google Glass, the company's controversial effort to create a wearable computer in the form of eyeglasses." data-image-copyright="google-knew-glass-wasnt-even-close-to-ready-but-sergey-brin-pushed-it-out" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/google-knew-glass-wasnt-even-close-to-ready-but-sergey-brin-pushed-it-out-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/google-knew-glass-wasnt-even-close-to-ready-but-sergey-brin-pushed-it-out-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68552631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/GettyImages-168804341.jpg" data-image-caption="May 15, 2013: Larry Page, Google co-founder and CEO, speaks during the opening keynote at the Google I/O developers conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Google Developers Event Held In San Francisco" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/GettyImages-168804341-380x261.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/GettyImages-168804341-760x521.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony-Fadell_11A9225pp_w920_h1380.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: Fadell is also the co-founder of Actev Motors, a young, Mountain View, California-based company creating all-electric smart go-karts for children. Fadell’s work with Actev Motors is a passion project that ties to both his childhood interest in automobiles and his other full-time job: parenting. (© Rebecca Wilkowski Photography)" data-image-copyright="Tony-Fadell_11A9225(pp_w920_h1380)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony-Fadell_11A9225pp_w920_h1380-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tony-Fadell_11A9225pp_w920_h1380-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large.jpg" data-image-caption="Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell with Google CEO Larry Page." data-image-copyright="Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell with Google CEO Larry Page." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/large-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1464809352.jpg" data-image-caption="Tony Fadell on the cover of <i>Wired</i> magazine." data-image-copyright="1464809352" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1464809352-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1464809352-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Matt-Rogers-and-Tony-Fadell-Nest.jpg" data-image-caption="In 2010, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers left Apple’s iPod and iPhone development division to start Nest, a technology company working to build a state-of-the-art thermostat." data-image-copyright="Matt-Rogers-and-Tony-Fadell-Nest" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Matt-Rogers-and-Tony-Fadell-Nest-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Matt-Rogers-and-Tony-Fadell-Nest-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2015_11_04_80_4230016373.272df.jpg" data-image-caption="Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers." data-image-copyright="2015_11_04_80_4230016373.272df" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2015_11_04_80_4230016373.272df-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2015_11_04_80_4230016373.272df-760x428.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on February 27, 2017</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration science-exploration analytical curious resourceful help-mankind build-or-create-things " data-year-inducted="2007" data-achiever-name="Berners-Lee"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-timothy-berners-lee/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ber1-009a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ber1-009a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Sir Tim Berners-Lee</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Father of the World Wide Web</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2007</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever business build-or-create-things curious resourceful start-a-business " data-year-inducted="2001" data-achiever-name="Bezos"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeffrey-p-bezos/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bez0-007a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bez0-007a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jeffrey P. 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Bezos</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benazir-bhutto/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benazir Bhutto</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/keith-l-black/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Keith L. Black, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-boies-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Boies</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-e-borlaug/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman E. Borlaug, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-c-bradlee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin C. Bradlee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sergey-brin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sergey Brin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carter-j-brown/"><span class="achiever-list-name">J. Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170916153402/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. 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