Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and founder of smart home company Nest, said Silicon Valley’s lavish perks are hurting innovation and urgency in tech companies. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, Fadell, who has worked with both Google and Apple, shared how the two companies have very different work cultures. “At Apple, you couldn’t hide,” Fadell said.”Everyone was critical,” he added.On the contrary, culture at Google was much more relaxed. Fadell, who sold Nest to Google for $3.2 billion, said “You were lucky if they even showed up… They’d take the bus in for lunch, get a massage, grab yogurt, and head home”.Criticizing Google’s famous “20 percent time” policy that lets engineers work on side projects, he said too much freedom breeds “mediocrity.” “It will mess up your culture” if you hire 15-year “career Googlers”,” Fadell added.
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A clash of cultures
When Google acquired Nest in 2014, Nest then reportedly struggled under Google’s looser, bottom-up management style. As per a report by the New Yorker, the clash of cultures contributed to Fadell’s departure in 2016 and led Google to rethink how it handles the new tech projects.Apple’s strict, top-down management style, on the other hand, has been studied in places like Harvard Business Review as a model for keeping creativity high without losing control.
Advice for startups
Sharing his advice for startups, Fadell said “Entitlement everywhere” is a hidden cost that no amount of funding, wellness programs, or free kombucha can fix. Do not mistake fancy office perks for real productivity, he advised. Fadell’s views on workplace culture go back to his early days at General Magic in the 1990s, where leaders promised not to hire “East Coast” executives who expected luxury perks like drivers and special toilets. Fadell believes the tech industry today is full of that same entitlement, which he says can “kill the hustle” needed for real breakthroughs.
