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Tony Fadell of iPod, iPhone, and Nest Fame — Stories of Steve Jobs on “Vacation,” Product Design and Team Building, Good Assholes vs. Bad Assholes, Investing in Trends Before They Become Trends, The Hydrogen Economy, The Future of Batteries, and More (#590)

  • Tim Ferriss
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    “It’s about the mission, not about your ego.”

    — Tony Fadell

    Tony Fadell (@tfadell) is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives. As the principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology, he is continuing to help bring technology out of the lab and into our lives. Currently, Future Shape is coaching 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies. 

    Tony began his career in Silicon Valley at General Magic, the most influential startup nobody has ever heard of. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the “Internet of Things” and created the Nest Learning Thermostat. Tony was the SVP of Apple’s iPod Division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career, Tony has authored more than 300 patents. In May 2016, TIME named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod, and the iPhone as three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.” 

    His new book is Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. 

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    Please enjoy!

    Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

    Brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions marketing platform with ~770M users, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating. More on all three below.

    The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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    #590: Tony Fadell of iPod, iPhone, and Nest Fame — Stories of Steve Jobs on “Vacation,” Product Design and Team Building, Good Assholes vs. Bad Assholes, Investing in Trends Before They Become Trends, The Hydrogen Economy, The Future of Batteries, and More

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    What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

    SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

    Want to hear the last time Tony was on the show? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed the repercussions of quitting caffeine cold turkey, why companies sometimes fail in spite of retaining a solid roster of talent, advice for people learning to lead on the fly, valuable lessons learned from Steve Jobs, seeing problems and building skills from a curious beginner’s perspective, managing impatience as a driving force without ticking off the other people working on a project, and much more.

    #403: Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity

    SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

    Personal Twitter | Future Shape Twitter | Instagram

    SHOW NOTES

    MORE TONY FADELL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

    “The story doesn’t exist to sell your product. It’s there to help you define it.”
    — Tony Fadell

    “All energy in the world today that is created, 60 percent of that is lost in inefficiencies. It doesn’t even do work. So just imagine what our climate crisis would be if we just saved that energy.”
    — Tony Fadell

    “To me, waste is horrid. I abhor waste. I loathe waste. When I go to the trash can each day, I’m like, ‘Okay, this is organic. I know where that could go. But where is this thing going? Where is that thing going?’ And it drives me nuts. And so when I see something like 60 percent of energy goes away just in losses, I’m like, ‘Where can we go target that?’ “
    — Tony Fadell

    “We don’t ever want to add more people to the team because we think lean and mean is better, but at some point you’re killing each other because you’re trying to do too much. So either do less, or you’ve got to add capabilities and hands to the situation.”
    — Tony Fadell

    “We call ourselves mentors with money.”
    — Tony Fadell

    “Our planet is incredibly sick and we caused it. Nobody else did. You can’t just sit around and go, ‘Well, it’s sick. I don’t know what to do.’ It’s a family member. It’s so important. What are you doing to be on the right side and trying to find solutions, both personally and professionally?”

    — Tony Fadell

    “It’s about the mission, not about your ego.”
    — Tony Fadell

    PEOPLE MENTIONED

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