This iPhone Designer Says No More Screens
In June 2016, Tony Fadell, the chief executive officer of Nest and one of the most important hardware executives of his generation, announced that he was leaving his smart-home companyās parent, Alphabet Inc. That wasnāt entirely shocking: Alphabetās creation in 2015, as a holding company that formally separated Googleās search business from its āother bets,ā had led to tension throughout those properties. Fadell, famous for creating Apple Inc.ās original iPod and iPhone prototypes, had sold Nest to Google in 2014 for $3.2 billion on the strength of an internet-connected thermostat. He didnāt need to stick around.
The engineerās next move was more of a surprise. He didnāt just leave Alphabet; he left Silicon Valley and relocated to Paris. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek 10 years after the iPhoneās release, Fadell, 48, explained his reasons for leaving and why he thinks āthe next iPhoneā wonāt be a phone at all.