Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell departs

Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell departs

Tony Fadell, the co-founder and CEO of Nest, has announced he will be leaving the connected devices company. He will remain as an advisor to its parent company Alphabet.

In a blog post on the Nest site, Fadell stated that this move was in the works since late 2015 He added:

While there is never a perfect time to transition, we've grown Nest to much more than a thermostat company. We've created a hardware + software + services ecosystem, which is still in the early growth stage and will continue to evolve to move further into the mainstream over the coming years. The future of Nest is equally as bright given the strong and experienced leadership team in place, as well as the two-year product roadmap we've developed together to ensure the right future direction.

Marwan Fawaz will take over as the new CEO of Nest, Fadell stated:

Marwan's extensive technology and engineering knowledge, his experience with global service providers, as well as his background in connected home platforms will be valuable in continuing our trajectory, especially in scaling the business, working with our partners, and supporting our enterprise channels. I have no doubt that the company will continue to flourish under his guidance and can't wait to see the innovations currently in development brought to market.

Fadell and Matt Rogers, who previously worked at Apple as two of the principle designers of the original iPod, founded Nest in 2011. It's main product was the Nest smart thermostat, which learns how to cool or heat a home more efficiently. Google acquired Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion. However, in recent months there have been rumors that the company has not been meeting Google's expectations in terms of sales.