There may only have been one Steve Jobs, but a recent article from Fast Company draws some interesting parallels between Jobs and Nest CEO, Tony Fadell — previously known as the Apple employee most synonymous with the iPod.
Alongside his obsessive focus on perfection and simplicity, the article notes that Fadell even lives in the same same neighborhood that Jobs once did.
One interesting passage that stands out describes Fadell’s Jobsian approach to management at Nest:
Fadell pushed his team [at Nest], much as he did at Apple. His reputation is for being intense, willing to go to war with Steve Jobs and his lieutenants over the development of the first-generation iPod and iPhone, and hard on his own troops. “The kiss of death at any of these product meetings–what would send Tony over the fucking moon–was when he went around the table asking how things are going, and you said, ‘Great!’ ” recalls one former Apple team member. “Tony would just lose his shit, because things are never going great.” (When one employee failed to live up to his standards, Fadell ordered a manager to fire the employee, saying, “You gotta Glock Glock that dude,” as he mimed shooting off a handgun. He was joking, but unapologetic.)
The article does, however, counter this by pointing out that Fadell gets passionate to the point of tears about design innovations (as did Jobs), and that this passion is viewed as making it worthwhile for his team (as it was with Jobs).
On the topic of Fadell joining Google, there is another Jobs comparison by likening the deal to Jobs’ famous visit to Xerox PARC where he first saw the G.U.I. in action:
Randy Komisar, the Nest investor and a close friend of Fadell’s, declines to go into specifics but does acknowledge that “what Google offered in terms of influence and resources was unique.” He compares the dynamic to Steve Jobs visiting Xerox Parc in the late 1970s, which boasted a “disparate hodgepodge of research projects” that Jobs pulled together into beautiful consumer electronics. “Tony’s in the same boat,” Komisar says. “He’s in a situation where he can handpick interesting stuff inside the organization and pull them into a consumer-driven product vision that Google hasn’t had in the past.”
Ultimately the article’s a worthwhile read for a glimpse at the Apple-inspired culture at Nest.
True, Fadell sounds like someone modelling himself on the prickliness of former mentor Steve Jobs, but unlike a lot of people for whom that is also true, he’s at least getting it done on the innovation front.
