Tony Fadell might be the next Steve Jobs… just not in the way you’d want

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Photo: Web Summit/Flickr CC
Photo: Web Summit/Flickr CC

Tony Fadell might model himself after Steve Jobs, but from the sound of things he may have taken disproportionately from the bad side of Jobs’ personality rather than the good side.

A new article appearing on StrictlyVC reports on the experience of the recently Nest-acquired Dropcam — makers of an iOS-friendly Wi-Fi security camera — whose employees are apparently struggling quite a bit with dealing with a the prickly, micromanaging Fadell.

Much of the anti-Fadell sentiment can be seen through the careers review site Glassdoor, where Fadell currently holds a 46% approval rating from existing and former employees.

“Everything revolves around the CEO,” one Nest employee writes. “It’s a dangerous mix of cult of personality and Stockholm syndrome. Comments like ‘He’s the next Steve Jobs’ are not uncommon, while people proudly say things like ‘I’m used to Tony screaming at me.’ Everyone dreads meetings with Tony because he will flip if he doesn’t like what he sees. Somehow that’s perceived as good leadership.”

Another current employee describes the cons of working at Nest as “Weak leadership. Arrogance [and a] Complete lack of empathy for employees.”

Of course, Steve Jobs’ record was hardly spotless when it came to good treatment of employees. But while Jobs could be harsh, the flipside was that Apple was (and still is) an innovative company that possesses the size of a giant but the nimbleness of a much smaller startup. In other words, it innovates quickly: something that Nest may not be doing as much of as it once was.

 

“[T]he tops down culture has transformed us into a slow moving sloth of a company that demotivates an extremely smart and (once) tenacious team,” one employee writes. “There’s a huge opportunity in front of us, but we will miss it if we cannot right this ship soon with systemic changes.”

Sources who spoke to StrictlyVC also describe the company’s hierarchical structure as being similar to Game of Thrones: a combative attitude that sounds far closer to Microsoft in the 90s, or the fiefdoms that existed at Apple prior to Jobs’ return, rather than Apple post-1997.

Maybe we’re starting to get a sense of why Apple wasn’t so keen to snap up Nest, despite all the reasons it appeared to make sense?

Via: Business Insider

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