Tony Fadell is Leaving Nest ⇥ nest.com

Tony Fadell, in a post on the official Nest blog:

Since the launch of Nest in October 2011, this blog has been a place for me to share my thoughts on all things Nest – like explaining why we created the Nest Learning Thermostat, sharing the customer stories that inspire us, announcing new products and services, or highlighting our exceptional partners across retail, energy and insurance providers, professional installers, and the developer community. Today though, my news is bittersweet: I have decided that the time is right to “leave the Nest.” […]

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

No surprises here — it has not been a good year for Nest, amidst allegations of poor organization, overbearing management, and a lack of focus. Just last month, Google announced a “unified hardware division” that would function as a sister company that directly competes with Nest.

It’s a shame that Fadell is out. He is, by many accounts, a terrific product person and someone who truly understands a bigger picture. But Nest has floundered over the past couple of years, escalating with the Information’s blockbuster report at the end of March.

Fadell has announced that his replacement will be cable executive Marwan Fawaz, because when you think “big changes that make both employees and customers really happy”, you think of cable executives.