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Tony Fadell, the CEO and co-founder of Nest, is leaving the company two years after his connected device firm was acquired by Google.
Fadell announced his departure in a tweet on Friday, capping off a rocky tenure under the search giant, which reorganized itself as Alphabet in August and placed Fadell at the helm of his independent company.
1/2: What a ride! Proud of what we’ve built @nest! Great team, business, products, awesome roadmap & momentum https://t.co/BAgi3hSi3e
— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) June 3, 2016
Marwan Fawaz, a former Motorola executive and adviser to the home security company ADT, is joining as Nest CEO.
The move comes after a series of public dramas and critical departures at Nest, which has failed to meet initial expectations since Google acquired it for over $3 billion two years ago. As we reported, Nest brought in around $340 million in revenue last year — short of the goals set before the company acquired the videocamera startup Dropcam.
That acquisition, by all measures, went terribly: Most of the Dropcam team departed, largely due to the frustrations of working under Fadell. Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy voiced those frustrations very publicly, writing that he regretted selling his company to Nest and Google.
Fadell will stay on as an adviser to Larry Page, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, the company said in a statement.
Several sources have said that a major issue for Nest was the integration of corporate cultures. Fadell, a former Apple executive, brought several others from that company and tried to retain Apple's unique, tenacious culture. That often clashed with Google's more open, experimental ethos, a fact that many Googlers noted often in many forums.
Page released this statement about the transition, noting that Nest's revenue has grown more than 50 percent annually since it started shipping products.
Under Tony’s leadership, Nest has catapulted the connected home into the mainstream, secured leadership positions for each of its products, and grown its revenue in excess of 50% year over year since they began shipping products. He’s a true visionary and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role as advisor to Alphabet. I’m delighted that Marwan will be the new Nest CEO and am confident in his ability to deepen Nest’s partnerships, expand within enterprise channels, and bring Nest products to even more homes.
And this statement came from Fadell:
Last year, I began discussions with members of my team about my next endeavor. After six years of working on Nest, leading it through 4.5 years of double-digit growth and consistently high marks from customers, I leave Nest in the hands of a strong and experienced leadership team, with Marwan at the helm and a well-defined, two-year product roadmap in place. I’m looking forward to my new role as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry, which will give me more 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.
Tony Faddell spoke to The Verge's Lauren Goode at Code Conference 2016. Here's the interview:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
