Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

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From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105510

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outside1234 109 days ago

I worked there. It was literally the worst experience of my career - and I have worked at all of the hardest charging blue chips and two successful startups - so it is not about high expectations - but abuse. I still wake up with something like PTSD occasionally from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell almost literally every day while I was there.

I have a distance from it now -- and a way better job. It made me realize that the culture of a place is really what makes it and that "how" you get results really matter. I bought into the Apple pedigree of the place without understanding that the way Tony got there was through essentially wrecking other people's lives.

I have no idea why Google bought this. Tony literally stood up at an all-hands after the Alphabet thing and said "Fuck being Googley" (direct quote).

Frankly, if I could offer Larry Page once piece of advice it would be to take Tony out front of TGIF and fire him publicly -- all of this comes from Tony. Matt is just his hatchet man and fake cofounder.

There are a lot of great people at Nest and they deserve a better leader.

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This is the story I've heard from everyone I know who works there. Not a great place to be.

In retrospect, this line made me chuckle, it being a Friday and all:

>>> Frankly, if I could offer Larry Page once piece of advice it would be to take Tony out front of TGIF and fire him publicly

As a side note, I have been thinking about Yishan-style CEOs for a while now and part of the point is to fix these problems.

What do you mean by Yishan's style?

Yishan-style CEOs?

I am talking about Yishan Wong, formerly of Reddit.

Monday's standup: Y: Fired Tony Fadell

T: Realized that we made him an "advisor", dealing with backlash from that

But TGIF is on Thursday.

(Seriously, Google is kind of odd.)

Google is an international company and Silicon Valley is at the butt end of the world timezonewise, so holding it on Thursdays lets all the other offices dial in on a weekday.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11106680

I never got upvoted more on HN.

I wonder if you were there when I reported 768-bit DHE on one of Nest's servers to Google security around mid-2015. Especially if you were following @NestSupport on Twitter around this time (there was also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170833). It wasn't long after that they had to hire a VP of security (when Alphabet was formed I think).

I have to wonder if this is the result of cargo-culting Steve Jobs' personality, without the corresponding vision.

Ans they keep getting it wrong. It wasn't his abusive personality, but his turtleneck that was behind his success, Just like how a great suit commands respect.

As a funny side note, having just one outfit to wear everyday eliminates the cost of that decision, giving more resources to other decisions. I believe Einstein did something similar simply because he wanted to focus his energies on the interesting stuff.

It's truly trivial to select clothing to wear during the day. If someone told me that they were 'saving resources' by wearing the same thing most of the time I think I would laugh in their face. I have to think it was just some personal branding on Jobs part, as in Everytime you see the dude he's 'the same'/consistent, depending on how you interpret that.

It's only trivial if you either genuinely don't care about what you wear or actually like selecting clothes. If you do care about what you wear but don't like selecting clothes, I can see why it would annoy you.

I feel the same way about washing dishes. I care about having clean dishes but I really don't like washing dishes. Even now with a dishwasher, I get annoyed having to hand-wash the dishes that aren't dishwasher-safe.

> It's only trivial if you either genuinely don't care about what you wear

In my case it's jeans and a t-shirt, clean jeans are piled next to clean t-shirts, I work my way down both piles until there is one of each then I put the entire laundy basket through the wash and re-pile them.

Unless it's a special event or a meeting I really don't care, jeans and a t-shirt is fine for day to day wear and one t-shirt is much the same as another.

It tends to be the picking out and maintaining a wardrobe of clothes that takes the effort for most people I think, not the actual choosing of shirt and pants in the morning. Of course, billionaire CEOs could easily just hire wardrobe consultants to handle that for them - and I'm sure many do - but some don't care, beyond just being presentable. And so they wear basically the same thing every day.

I dunno, man.

Clothing choices are a pretty big stressor for my SO and by extension me.

That always struck me as lame. If someone that well off wants to eliminate that decision, then just have a professional clothes person create clothing matches. 'A' goes with 'A'. 'B' goes with 'B'.

What it really is, is someone making a statement about how important their decisions are.

Lots of well off people still wear interesting clothing.

It sounds like more of an ASD symptom. Having routines and being unable to break them. I have mild ASD and often wear the same clothes/copies of the same stupid free startup tshirt for no real reason other than subconsciously I hate change. I also really haven't bought new clothes for years due to it being too much change to handle. I do make sure they are clean when I wear them tho!

He did hire a professional -- to design his daily uniform.

http://gawker.com/5848754/steve-jobs-on-why-he-wore-turtlene...

I wear a collared shirt and black pants to work every day, but the shirts are different colours. Frankly, my fashion sense isn't great but I look decent in a nice collated shirt and my wife does have a great sense of style (heck, she makes a dork like me look good, I'm always in awe of this ability - it's like a superpower!) so this makes complete sense to me.

I think these people apply the same principle to many other decision making processes in their lives, not just picking clothes, which is very visible hence everyone talks about. I guess saving on clothes is small but many little things add up quickly.

> That always struck me as lame.

That's bullshit. Wearing the same outfit added some mystic to Steve Jobs. It may not work on the public persona of every CEO but it obviously did for Jobs.

It's a great idea. I have a dozen of the same shirt in different colors, like red, blue, green, black. When folding, I roll together a shirt, underwear, and pair of socks. Likewise I make gym bundles - shirt, shorts, socks, and a wash cloth for the shower.

I still get to make a decision about which color shirt I'm going to wear that day, but don't need to think about even reaching for socks, since they're already in the shirt roll.

Nice. I switched to the solid colors shirt and slacks outfit a year ago. This sounds like a good improvement to the process. Those that scoff at it -- I went from wasting about 1hr to now spending about 20 min in the morning "getting ready". 40 minutes every day is a good chunk of time:

http://www.xkcd.com/1205/

(admittedly the outfit choosing part was only about 5 of those minutes, but still a good chunk of time over 5 years)

edit: oh yeah, I don't even choose a color. I just line them up ROYGBV.

"As a funny side note, having just one outfit to wear everyday eliminates the cost of that decision, giving more resources to other decisions."

Recommended. I have a "uniform" that I wear[1][2] that works very well for me across different weather, places and events. I established it about ten years ago and have reaped quite a return from that initial investment.

Now, in addition to my default "uniform" I also have codified what I wear the rest of the time into 2-3 different other[3] "uniforms" that are better optimized for a few different situations. I hope to get at least 10 years out of these investments.

[1] Jeans, Next Level poly/cotton vintage t-shirt, long sleeved patagonia capilene 2 (black). Running shoes.

[2] Since I have at least 10 of each item, I always have something clean to wear.

[3] Casual warm, casual cold, manual labor.

It's less that they don't have to pick the clothes. And more that they don't give a shit (about variation in style.)

This is one of the things I really enjoyed about going to war in the Army: You can go for a couple of weeks in the same clothes without showering and nobody harps on you for it.

The black turtleneck didn't work so well for Elizabeth Holmes. Maybe it's a guy thing.

Kudos to Larry for recognizing it was time to do the right thing and remove Tony. In this day and age, that sort of courage is pretty rare.

Do no evil indeed.

That seems like a low standard for courage. Larry Page is the CEO of Google (Alphabet). He can fire pretty much anyone he wants, including (and especially) the CEO of a company he acquired. Firing an asshole seems like the reasonable thing to do, not courageous.

But let's be real for a moment -- the guy was probably not fired because he's a prick. Who knows the reason, but ultimately Alphabet is a public company that demands results (and returns) from assets (companies) it invests in (acquires). My hunch is that Nest (and/or it's subsidiaries) were not delivering, and the CEO is ultimately responsible.

It probably didn't help that the guy is an asshole, but let's not pretend that Larry Page walked through the Nest offices like a white knight, sensed a "negative energy", interviewed the sad-looking office manager, and determined the CEO was "damaging to company morale" and therefore MUST be replaced.

Page is the CEO of the one of the largest and most important publicly traded companies in the world. He has a legal and fiduciary responsibility to do right by shareholders. If the Nest CEO was putting up numbers, he'd still have a job, period, asshole or saint.

I swung by a wrong address the other day and it turned out to be a Nest office. It was shut down and completely empty, door locked and nobody inside. (I was hoping someone there might direct me to the place I was looking for). It was a sizable office building. Probably not their main office, but I'm sure it housed a bunch of people at one point.

Nest actually recently moved....there are about 6 new buildings over two campuses, all in use.

There are plenty of other fire-able offenses that even CEO's aren't immune to. Being an asshole isn't one, but you can't just say that if he was performing well, he'd never be fired.

>>but you can't just say that if he was performing well, he'd never be fired.

In that case (Tony being fired despite performing well), Larry (the firing knight/king) would be an asshole.

If he was performing well in terms of "putting up numbers", but treating his (and Larry's) employees terribly to do it, firing him would still in my opinion be the right move, and would certainly not make Larry an asshole.

I agree. Sadly these days, performing well is almost invariably defined in terms of "putting up numbers". The issue of treatment of employees comes far later (and far meeker) than the issue of making profit for the shareholders.

And, excuse me for saying that, that's why you're not a CEO of such a large company.

Consider these alternate (admittedly extreme) realities:

A. CEO is an asshole, but manages to bring in $1M/employee in revenue for a company with 500 employees.

B. CEO is a nice guy, but doesn't manage to bring in enough revenue and has to fire 250 of 500 employees.

In reality A, those people who don't think they are paid enough for the abuse, will leave, as they should. In reality B, the choice of who leaves and stays is almost random.

What you say is that firing a reality A CEO is "the right move". The problem is you're extremely likely to get either a reality B CEO, or an asshole with reality B revenue. HP's history since Carly Fiorina would give you a good case study.

So, from almost anyone's perspective, armchair generals excepted, it is NOT the right move.

Obviously I'm not a CEO of a Google-scale company. I am a CEO of a small software company, fwiw. But it doesn't really matter. You may be right that choosing not to allow employees to be treated like garbage would be a poor financial decision in some cases. I would still classify it as the right decision, but I can see there being an argument there. That said, there would be many, many highly qualified applicants to a position like CEO of Nest, and it would surprise me if it wasn't possible to find someone who was both a) at least as competent as the outgoing CEO, and b) not abusive to employees. In that case, it would also be a (potentially huge) financially beneficial move as well.

Edit: oh, and to my original point - in no scenario I can think of would firing someone for abusing their employees or co-workers make one an "asshole".

There seems to be a common problem that many of us never-will-be-CEOs have.

We don't act like sociopaths and put profits and duties towards boards before people.

Of course. Neither would I (act like a sociopath or ever be CEO of Google or anything 10% of its size).

But we should not be ignoring the reality, which is that many CEOs are sociopaths (as are many successful politicians). Larry Paige is not, as far as I can tell, a sociopath, but because he does actually have to report to shareholders, he is unlikely to fire someone like Tony Fadell for mistreating his employees as long as he delivers. Fadell didn't, and that's why he's out -- not because of how he treated his employees.

> The problem is you're extremely likely to get either a reality B CEO, or an asshole with reality B revenue.

You do propose HP as a case study, but why is it "extremely likely" to lead to that negative outcome?

Also, isn't it possible for a "nice guy" CEO to also bring in high revenue?

I don't think "nice" necessarily equates with "ineffective" in a CEO (for some definitions of "nice").

Because, to quote Sturgeon, "90% of everything is crud", and that includes CEO candidates.

Reality C is far more common - CEO is an asshole and clueless about running a profitable business. Because they're too busy and distracted by self-important posturing and/or outright fraud to make good decisions.

Competent assholes are far less common than incompetent assholes.

There's a bizarre myth that being an asshole somehow correlates with business competence.

But that doesn't take any account of the large number of asshole CEOs who are crash-and-burn fuck ups.

i was there when Marwan was at Motorola Mobility(Home). He is no leader. He never tried to understand any product or road map. He had no vision. His monthly townhall had generic corporate BS filled presentations with no real meaning. He was there for one purpose and one purpose only, to sell the division. He was Larry's go to guy to get rid of things.

Looking from far away and from previous experience, it seems like Google has decided move into a different direction. They want to get rid of NEST.

If anyone is expecting Marwan to be the leader and build NEST business, then you couldn't be further from the truth.

Interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if they want to get rid of nest given the recent negative publicity from the former CEO all the way down to the product causing google employees to post negative reviews and update policies causing backlash.

This is one of their big AI-driven products. I would be surprised if this is part of a larger AI draw down -- that deep learning wasn't up for this type of task. I would also be a little surprised that they would get rid of an "AI enhanced" product given their recent push towards AI.

Arguably, the time to do the right thing was years ago, when Tony was abusing his employees and Nest was making no money other than what Dropcam was making (meaning that buying Dropcam instead of Nest would have made vastly more sense).

Yes, but hindsight is 20/20. The only decisions you can make are the ones in front of you - and Larry made the right one here.

Companies don't usually buy early stage companies based on their current revenue (which was a drop in the bucket compared to Google's total revenue), but the long term vision and leadership team. Regardless of what eventually happened, at the time Google purchased Nest, Tony was a seasoned executive who had lead a large division and many highly successful products at Apple.

This may have been impossible depending on his contract. It's worth pointing out this is two years and three months after nest was acquired.

I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11425718

Are there any solid indicators that Fadell was asked to leave? He'll still be working with Alphabet.

Nobody knows what actually happened here, and even if he was asked to leave it's very strange to call that "courage". I don't even know what the last sentence is supposed to mean.

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