9 ms·

Nest’s time at Alphabet

189 points by suprgeek 10y ago

ericabiz 10y ago
The article says Nest may be up for sale, which would make sense. I have to think that the buyer would probably buy Nest for the underlying technology and not the brand at this point, however. I have an original Nest thermostat but would never buy another Nest product due to the horror stories that continually pop up online. I don't follow Nest closely or have any particular interest in them, but I remember the video they reference in the article from the Google employee who couldn't stop the smoke detectors from false alarming, and I also saw the news when they decided to "brick" a $300 product they acquired. Based on those two things alone, I don't feel like they take customer satisfaction seriously, nor do I have confidence in their ability to build a good product--even though my thermostat has never had any issues. I doubt I'm alone in this.
- aembleton 10y ago
  I'm very happy with my Nest thermostat. I have no desire for IoT smoke alarm but I don't think I'd like to go back to an old style thermostat.
  - ericabiz 10y ago
    Oh, me neither. But today there are plenty of companies in the smart thermostat game. A quick Amazon search shows 8 at a glance, only one of which is a Nest.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    Honeywell has a wifi thermostat for $80?? Which has a lot less problems than a Nest. Doesn't look as cool I guess.
- ghaff 10y ago
  As someone who lives in the Northeast the horror stories make the thermostat a non-starter. Even a tiny drop in reliability that could cause an outage in the winter isn't acceptable in exchange for a cool looking device that I can, on rare occasions, use to remotely change a setting that I forgot before leaving on a trip. The current generation of Nest Protect actually seems pretty good--it's not nearly as bad with full volume false alarms as my previous one was when I open the oven door. But I basically don't care about the IoT aspect of it.
  - knz 10y ago
    IoT is a perfect use for notifying you if the furnace fails and you are not home since IoT temperature sensors operate independently of the thermostat. I've put a Nest Thermostat in multiple houses now and been very happy with them - the remote control functionality, decent web UI for additional control/scheduling, and the app are simple enough for family members who are not in IT to use.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      I agree that one can imagine an IoT system designed by paranoids for northern houses that does things like provide undertemperature warnings, shuts off plumbing systems, etc. I'd considered buying such a system. The Nest though strikes me as a flashy device that potentially decreases overall system reliability. ADDED: In general, I'm sure a Nest works fine. I just have a use case where the winter reliability of my heating system is really important. I can't control every aspect of that but I don't want to hurt any aspect of it for trivial gains.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  Selling Nest makes tons of sense. It's probably still valuable to someone who thought of buying when Google did, and Nest adds very little to Google's IoT/home-automation platform, which is more likely to be Android-based. Moreover it is unclear if, all else being equal, thermostats would be very high on Google's IoT priorities.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  > buy Nest for the underlying technology What do they have that is hard to do from scratch?
  - raldi 10y ago
    Understanding of the extraordinarily convoluted process it takes to get permission to sell a smoke alarm in the United States.
dexwiz 10y ago
IoT is a fad. I have yet to see very many convincing arguments on why my house needs to be online. The existing products (locks, sensors, smoke detectors) are barely different from existing home security products that have been on the market for years. The functionality of Echo/OnHub is largely covered by smartphones. They promise integration with other home IoT devices that do not exist yet. People are very hesitant to buy new appliances/home products. The last major change to the American home was the television, and that was ~50 years ago. Desktops had their day, but have been largely replaced by Laptops/Smartphones for many consumers. Adoption of new home appliances and technologies is glacially slow. Also newer electronics have shown they need replaced/upgraded every 2-5 years. You are going to be hard pressed to sell the idea that the consumer needs to replace all their light switches and smoke detectors even every 10 years. I barely replace light bulbs at that rate now. Cars about the only place where the IoT call home paradigm works. They are complicated machines that need semi regular maintenance. Placing sensors all over it makes sense. Trading updates for telemetry is attractive because a cars computer needs updates like any other computer. But I don't need a fridge that senses when I am low on milk, when I can just as easily look inside it and tell for myself. EDIT: I think I should clarify that home IoT is a fad. Having machines feed back telemetry is useful, especially commercial machines with a service contract. The data is useful when its actionable. Data for the sake of data in the home is a waste.
- jkot 10y ago
  IoT will eventually happen, but for Smart Grid to reduce power usage. There is a potential to save 30% of energy cost.
  - Animats 10y ago
    That doesn't need the "cloud". It just needs a broadcast signal telling your appliances the current price of electricity.
    - lucaspiller 10y ago
      It's not exactly the same, but in the UK, Economy 7 is effectively a low tech version of this. At night the price of electricity is cheaper, so electric storage heaters and boilers are switched on then to take advantage of the lower costs and reduce demand at peak times. Rather than using timers, it is controlled by a radio signal broadcast throughout the country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7
ChuckMcM 10y ago
This sums up Google in a single paragraph: In 2015 Nest posted job listings for its "Nest Audio Team." The team would be responsible for "developing an audio roadmap for Nest products." Industry observers suspected the audio team was building a smart Bluetooth speaker, but Google beat Nest to the punch with Google Home, an Amazon Echo-style Bluetooth speaker and voice assistant appliance. According to a report from The Information, when Nest found out about Google Home, it asked to work on the project with Google. Nest's request was turned down. We can only guess why—maybe Nest's reputation inside Google had something to do with it? Often times Google has multiple projects doing effectively the same "thing" going at the same time. They don't work together because the idea is to have the team that can get to the "finish line" first to win, not to co-operate. This, as it was explained to me by an engineering director there, was to encourage a 'natural selection mechanism that selected for the best teams and the best products.' While I understood the idea, that you would pit your own resources against each other like that was kind of foreign to me. My own personal learning from that, having watched them for 15 years, four of which from the inside, is that as a way of managing a company it produces few viable products and no viable businesses.
- dexwiz 10y ago
  The flipside of the argument is a Project Managers hiring 9 women to have a baby in 1 month. Collaboration between teams does incur a cost. Working closely with a single team is easier than coordinating across multiple teams in multiple business units. The additional headcount may not offset the cost.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    I'm slightly missing the point, but have to ask. Why 9?
    - dexwiz 10y ago
      Average pregnancy is 9 months long. "Limited divisibility of tasks. Adding more people to a highly divisible task such as reaping a field by hand decreases the overall task duration (up to the point where additional workers get in each others way). Some tasks are less divisible; Brooks points out that while it takes one woman nine months to make one baby, "nine women can't make a baby in one month"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law
danso 10y ago
The debacle of the smoke alarm made me immediately regret buying one of my friends for their newborn son's room. But wow, the following sounds like an utter fail...if quadrupling the headcount doesn't bring new products, then you at least expect the old product to have tried overexpanding into new markets...they weren't even able to do that: Even by Fadell's own standards, the Google acquisition doesn't seem to have led to huge wins for Nest. In an interview with Bloomberg shortly after the sale, Fadell was asked what the move would mean for Nest. "For us it was about getting out to the world faster" Fadell said. "[Our products are imported] in 96 countries where we don't even sell today. We can see these devices being connected but we can't get there fast enough. For us, going with Google, we can get access to resources to allow us to move these products around the world much more quickly." Before the Google acquisition, Nest was for sale in three countries. In two-and-a-half years under Google and Alphabet, Nest expanded to just four more countries.
abritinthebay 10y ago
I love my Nest thermostat- it's still better than any other smart thermostat out there in build quality and reliability (tho the Ecobee series is slightly more feature rich) - but I can't say I'm surprised. Nest is, in many ways, the most disappointing company. I'm not sure how much of that is just down to them lacking vision or leadership though - they have the skills to do great things.
- bratsche 10y ago
  I have a Nest thermostat as well, and I like it. I've wondered before if they just had that one good idea and that was it. When they announced the smoke detector my jaw dropped. It just seemed like such an awful idea. I had thought maybe they would do a smart lawn watering system next. I know it's a smaller market, but it seemed better aligned with the thermostat as something that could be marketed as a money-saver. The smoke detector doesn't save you any money, it just seems like a solution in search of a problem. The lawn system could basically sell itself: local rebates on the up-front cost, the promise of saving you water/$$, and the name that Nest had already established from their thermostat. There are some other companies making products like this now, but I don't know if they're good.
  - lstamour 10y ago
    Drives me slightly crazy seeing lawn sprinklers going while it's raining and humid...
    - Anechoic 10y ago
      Drives me slightly crazy seeing lawn sprinklers going while it's raining and humid.. The underground sprinkler system my parents installed 30 years ago has a sensor to prevent that, it's certainly not unusual. It would be interesting to see rain sensors for regular sprinters although I'd be shocked if they didn't already exist.
      - perishabledave 10y ago
Animats 10y ago
Alphabet trashed their robotics companies. They trashed their IoT companies. I hope they don't trash the self-driving car operation.
- AJ007 10y ago
  Google is the next Yahoo?
  - Animats 10y ago
    No, Google's core business, search, is doing great. Starting a conglomerate of unrelated businesses is not working out. Google's basic problem: search ads are incredibly profitable when you're #1. But they've saturated that market. Nothing else they do with their excess cash can match those returns. If they do something less profitable, the stock price goes down. Hence Alphabet's search for a "moonshot". But what management meant by "moonshot" was another high volume product with a huge return on investment. That's probably not going to happen in the home appliance space, which is price-sensitive and competitive.
    - jonny_eh 10y ago
      Outside of Search, Google's most successful product is YouTube. I just wonder how well their doing monetizing it.
      - a_small_island 10y ago
        Not sure how much has changed in a year, but Youtube runs at breakeven/potentially a loss[0]: "The online-video unit posted revenue of about $4 billion in 2014, up from $3 billion a year earlier, according to two people familiar with its financials, as advertiser-friendly moves enticed some big brands to spend more. But while YouTube accounted for about 6% of Google’s overall sales last year, it didn’t contribute to earnings. After paying for content, and the equipment to deliver speedy videos, YouTube’s bottom line is “roughly break-even,” according to a person with knowledge of the figure." [0]http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967 http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-fo...
throwaway23716 10y ago
As a Googler, a thus invested in the success of Nest as a business, I'm fucking furious at Fadell's lack of leadership. As an owner of many Nest products, and thus invested into the success of the Nest ecosystem, I'm also fucking furious. What a waste.
- draw_down 10y ago
  Sure, but whose decision was it to buy Nest? Seems a bit silly to stop with being angry at Fadell.
mtgx 10y ago
I wonder if it had crossed Google leaders' minds that Nest would fail after acquiring them because people don't trust Google to gather their data.
- cbr 10y ago
  It doesn't look to me like that's why Nest failed?
  - awesomerobot 10y ago
    not even remotely related
awesomerobot 10y ago
Doesn't Nest have like 1200 employees? What are they doing day-to-day? With that many people it seems like you'd almost release a product accidentally.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  Nobody wants to be blamed for a flop.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Ah, yes! And because of the current team and structure of management, everyone involved, consciously or unconsciusly knows that it will be nothing but a flop. They make a move, they lose. They don't do anything they lose as well, it will just take longer. So they chose the second option.
- simonswords82 10y ago
  Infinite monkeys in a room armed with type writers will eventually write Shakespeare (or release a new product) but it'll take a very long time. Nest needs to innovate and rapidly evolve products very quickly to keep ahead of the market, which it seems includes their colleagues (madness). Given a team of that size and complexity nothing but the best management will get products out the door. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
  - snowfield 10y ago
    Infinite monkeys will make it infinitely fast :P
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  What are they doing day-to-day? Working on their resumes' ?
- elgabogringo 10y ago
  Accidentally... love it.
TheGuyWhoCodes 10y ago
That's a nice 3B$ flop right there, 3.5B$ if you take the dropcam into account. Why couldn't they just focus on small inexpensive products that sell without thinking? Take chrome cast for example, great product, cheap price, don't really have to debate if I want to buy it. Hey Google, here is an idea, why don't you make an IoT button that can talk/control other devices like bttn or flic but costs just 5$ (I'm looking at you Amazon dash). They will sell like hotcakes! After that you can introduce some other products, maybe under the home brand, like a device that control your AC (it just needs to work, doesn't have to be apple like the Nest) or one that monitors your water heater. What about a small device that checks for leaks in your pipes. There is so much stuff todo here.
- petra 10y ago
  The chrome cast can bring digital advertising to the TV, and offer Google some control.So they can sell at cost. What does the a button or a flood sensor buy them ?
  - TheGuyWhoCodes 10y ago
    I don't think they get much more in ad revenue because of chrome cast, if I want to watch something I'd watch it on my mobile or PC, casting to the TV is just more comfortable, it's not an enabler to something that wasn't watchable. Moreover chrome cast is used outside of google products like Plex, Netflix, HBO etc. Having a low bar for entry into the home is huge for a company which is all about data and insights.
revelation 10y ago
Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. Holy.. what are they all doing?
1945 10y ago
Hacker news is oddly obsessed with negative Nest press. Suspiciously so.
- mwfunk 10y ago
  Well, it's not like there's been any positive Nest press in the last year or so to obsess over. Based on the stories, what's been happening at Nest is an extreme case of many of the same organizational antipatterns that people in the tech industry see in their own companies on a smaller scale. The things that have happened at Nest (if the stories are to be believed) are like cancer to a tech company. If left unchecked those antipatterns can grow and consume a company, and can ultimately kill it. No amount of reform will save a company if they can no longer retain talent or recruit replacements of the same or better caliber. Given that so many HN readers are in the tech industry themselves, they probably worry about these kinds of cancers taking root at their own companies (I know I do). This stuff exists everywhere, it's just that for stable companies it's the exception and not the rule. I'm not surprised that it's been a hot topic.
  - 1945 10y ago
    > Well, it's not like there's been any positive Nest press in the last year or so to obsess over. Their performance versus the rest of the Google ventures? The product line that was previously leaked? And, in the eyes of Hacker News perhaps celebrating Tony stepping aside. A lot of these stories, if they are in fact true, likely happened prior to Google acquisition and those people are now just feeling comfortable to speak out without the fear of it being spun as retaliation. I have a lot of faith that the Google HR department wouldn't tolerate any of the behavior, which is why it smells like a marketing campaign.
j0hnj0nes 10y ago
all of this comment and not a single one seems constructive... Nest the company problem as consumers (myself being one) seems to be Software... I use the nest software and simply put it's not up to scratch The Hardware is beautiful if only the software was... For example the nest protect has temperature sensors yet the Nest thermostat can not use these... Nor can the software operate without access to the "cloud" even in a reduced ability. Google OnHub suffers from the same Software problems, Great hardware and nice low level drivers however it cant even use IPv6 which for a router is pretty basic my advice for the incoming CEO, interoperability Simple make use of thread & brillo (software) to unify things... (produce an alarm but have the option of ADT as the responder) Unify the products so they can work within a LAN and expand outside of the USA. I hope that helps John

189 points by suprgeek 10y ago

The article says Nest may be up for sale, which would make sense. I have to think that the buyer would probably buy Nest for the underlying technology and not the brand at this point, however. I have an original Nest thermostat but would never buy another Nest product due to the horror stories that continually pop up online. I don't follow Nest closely or have any particular interest in them, but I remember the video they reference in the article from the Google employee who couldn't stop the smoke detectors from false alarming, and I also saw the news when they decided to "brick" a $300 product they acquired. Based on those two things alone, I don't feel like they take customer satisfaction seriously, nor do I have confidence in their ability to build a good product--even though my thermostat has never had any issues. I doubt I'm alone in this.

aembleton 10y ago
I'm very happy with my Nest thermostat. I have no desire for IoT smoke alarm but I don't think I'd like to go back to an old style thermostat.
- ericabiz 10y ago
  Oh, me neither. But today there are plenty of companies in the smart thermostat game. A quick Amazon search shows 8 at a glance, only one of which is a Nest.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Honeywell has a wifi thermostat for $80?? Which has a lot less problems than a Nest. Doesn't look as cool I guess.
ghaff 10y ago
As someone who lives in the Northeast the horror stories make the thermostat a non-starter. Even a tiny drop in reliability that could cause an outage in the winter isn't acceptable in exchange for a cool looking device that I can, on rare occasions, use to remotely change a setting that I forgot before leaving on a trip. The current generation of Nest Protect actually seems pretty good--it's not nearly as bad with full volume false alarms as my previous one was when I open the oven door. But I basically don't care about the IoT aspect of it.
- knz 10y ago
  IoT is a perfect use for notifying you if the furnace fails and you are not home since IoT temperature sensors operate independently of the thermostat. I've put a Nest Thermostat in multiple houses now and been very happy with them - the remote control functionality, decent web UI for additional control/scheduling, and the app are simple enough for family members who are not in IT to use.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    I agree that one can imagine an IoT system designed by paranoids for northern houses that does things like provide undertemperature warnings, shuts off plumbing systems, etc. I'd considered buying such a system. The Nest though strikes me as a flashy device that potentially decreases overall system reliability. ADDED: In general, I'm sure a Nest works fine. I just have a use case where the winter reliability of my heating system is really important. I can't control every aspect of that but I don't want to hurt any aspect of it for trivial gains.
Zigurd 10y ago
Selling Nest makes tons of sense. It's probably still valuable to someone who thought of buying when Google did, and Nest adds very little to Google's IoT/home-automation platform, which is more likely to be Android-based. Moreover it is unclear if, all else being equal, thermostats would be very high on Google's IoT priorities.
robotresearcher 10y ago
> buy Nest for the underlying technology What do they have that is hard to do from scratch?
- raldi 10y ago
  Understanding of the extraordinarily convoluted process it takes to get permission to sell a smoke alarm in the United States.

dexwiz 10y ago

IoT is a fad. I have yet to see very many convincing arguments on why my house needs to be online. The existing products (locks, sensors, smoke detectors) are barely different from existing home security products that have been on the market for years. The functionality of Echo/OnHub is largely covered by smartphones. They promise integration with other home IoT devices that do not exist yet. People are very hesitant to buy new appliances/home products. The last major change to the American home was the television, and that was ~50 years ago. Desktops had their day, but have been largely replaced by Laptops/Smartphones for many consumers. Adoption of new home appliances and technologies is glacially slow. Also newer electronics have shown they need replaced/upgraded every 2-5 years. You are going to be hard pressed to sell the idea that the consumer needs to replace all their light switches and smoke detectors even every 10 years. I barely replace light bulbs at that rate now. Cars about the only place where the IoT call home paradigm works. They are complicated machines that need semi regular maintenance. Placing sensors all over it makes sense. Trading updates for telemetry is attractive because a cars computer needs updates like any other computer. But I don't need a fridge that senses when I am low on milk, when I can just as easily look inside it and tell for myself. EDIT: I think I should clarify that home IoT is a fad. Having machines feed back telemetry is useful, especially commercial machines with a service contract. The data is useful when its actionable. Data for the sake of data in the home is a waste.

jkot 10y ago
IoT will eventually happen, but for Smart Grid to reduce power usage. There is a potential to save 30% of energy cost.
- Animats 10y ago
  That doesn't need the "cloud". It just needs a broadcast signal telling your appliances the current price of electricity.
  - lucaspiller 10y ago
    It's not exactly the same, but in the UK, Economy 7 is effectively a low tech version of this. At night the price of electricity is cheaper, so electric storage heaters and boilers are switched on then to take advantage of the lower costs and reduce demand at peak times. Rather than using timers, it is controlled by a radio signal broadcast throughout the country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7

ChuckMcM 10y ago

This sums up Google in a single paragraph: In 2015 Nest posted job listings for its "Nest Audio Team." The team would be responsible for "developing an audio roadmap for Nest products." Industry observers suspected the audio team was building a smart Bluetooth speaker, but Google beat Nest to the punch with Google Home, an Amazon Echo-style Bluetooth speaker and voice assistant appliance. According to a report from The Information, when Nest found out about Google Home, it asked to work on the project with Google. Nest's request was turned down. We can only guess why—maybe Nest's reputation inside Google had something to do with it? Often times Google has multiple projects doing effectively the same "thing" going at the same time. They don't work together because the idea is to have the team that can get to the "finish line" first to win, not to co-operate. This, as it was explained to me by an engineering director there, was to encourage a 'natural selection mechanism that selected for the best teams and the best products.' While I understood the idea, that you would pit your own resources against each other like that was kind of foreign to me. My own personal learning from that, having watched them for 15 years, four of which from the inside, is that as a way of managing a company it produces few viable products and no viable businesses.

dexwiz 10y ago
The flipside of the argument is a Project Managers hiring 9 women to have a baby in 1 month. Collaboration between teams does incur a cost. Working closely with a single team is easier than coordinating across multiple teams in multiple business units. The additional headcount may not offset the cost.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  I'm slightly missing the point, but have to ask. Why 9?
  - dexwiz 10y ago
    Average pregnancy is 9 months long. "Limited divisibility of tasks. Adding more people to a highly divisible task such as reaping a field by hand decreases the overall task duration (up to the point where additional workers get in each others way). Some tasks are less divisible; Brooks points out that while it takes one woman nine months to make one baby, "nine women can't make a baby in one month"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law

danso 10y ago

The debacle of the smoke alarm made me immediately regret buying one of my friends for their newborn son's room. But wow, the following sounds like an utter fail...if quadrupling the headcount doesn't bring new products, then you at least expect the old product to have tried overexpanding into new markets...they weren't even able to do that: Even by Fadell's own standards, the Google acquisition doesn't seem to have led to huge wins for Nest. In an interview with Bloomberg shortly after the sale, Fadell was asked what the move would mean for Nest. "For us it was about getting out to the world faster" Fadell said. "[Our products are imported] in 96 countries where we don't even sell today. We can see these devices being connected but we can't get there fast enough. For us, going with Google, we can get access to resources to allow us to move these products around the world much more quickly." Before the Google acquisition, Nest was for sale in three countries. In two-and-a-half years under Google and Alphabet, Nest expanded to just four more countries.

abritinthebay 10y ago

I love my Nest thermostat- it's still better than any other smart thermostat out there in build quality and reliability (tho the Ecobee series is slightly more feature rich) - but I can't say I'm surprised. Nest is, in many ways, the most disappointing company. I'm not sure how much of that is just down to them lacking vision or leadership though - they have the skills to do great things.

bratsche 10y ago
I have a Nest thermostat as well, and I like it. I've wondered before if they just had that one good idea and that was it. When they announced the smoke detector my jaw dropped. It just seemed like such an awful idea. I had thought maybe they would do a smart lawn watering system next. I know it's a smaller market, but it seemed better aligned with the thermostat as something that could be marketed as a money-saver. The smoke detector doesn't save you any money, it just seems like a solution in search of a problem. The lawn system could basically sell itself: local rebates on the up-front cost, the promise of saving you water/$$, and the name that Nest had already established from their thermostat. There are some other companies making products like this now, but I don't know if they're good.
- lstamour 10y ago
  Drives me slightly crazy seeing lawn sprinklers going while it's raining and humid...
  - Anechoic 10y ago
    Drives me slightly crazy seeing lawn sprinklers going while it's raining and humid.. The underground sprinkler system my parents installed 30 years ago has a sensor to prevent that, it's certainly not unusual. It would be interesting to see rain sensors for regular sprinters although I'd be shocked if they didn't already exist.
    - perishabledave 10y ago

Animats 10y ago

Alphabet trashed their robotics companies. They trashed their IoT companies. I hope they don't trash the self-driving car operation.

AJ007 10y ago
Google is the next Yahoo?
- Animats 10y ago
  No, Google's core business, search, is doing great. Starting a conglomerate of unrelated businesses is not working out. Google's basic problem: search ads are incredibly profitable when you're #1. But they've saturated that market. Nothing else they do with their excess cash can match those returns. If they do something less profitable, the stock price goes down. Hence Alphabet's search for a "moonshot". But what management meant by "moonshot" was another high volume product with a huge return on investment. That's probably not going to happen in the home appliance space, which is price-sensitive and competitive.
  - jonny_eh 10y ago
    Outside of Search, Google's most successful product is YouTube. I just wonder how well their doing monetizing it.
    - a_small_island 10y ago
      Not sure how much has changed in a year, but Youtube runs at breakeven/potentially a loss[0]: "The online-video unit posted revenue of about $4 billion in 2014, up from $3 billion a year earlier, according to two people familiar with its financials, as advertiser-friendly moves enticed some big brands to spend more. But while YouTube accounted for about 6% of Google’s overall sales last year, it didn’t contribute to earnings. After paying for content, and the equipment to deliver speedy videos, YouTube’s bottom line is “roughly break-even,” according to a person with knowledge of the figure." [0]http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967 http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-fo...

throwaway23716 10y ago

As a Googler, a thus invested in the success of Nest as a business, I'm fucking furious at Fadell's lack of leadership. As an owner of many Nest products, and thus invested into the success of the Nest ecosystem, I'm also fucking furious. What a waste.

draw_down 10y ago
Sure, but whose decision was it to buy Nest? Seems a bit silly to stop with being angry at Fadell.

mtgx 10y ago

I wonder if it had crossed Google leaders' minds that Nest would fail after acquiring them because people don't trust Google to gather their data.

cbr 10y ago
It doesn't look to me like that's why Nest failed?
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  not even remotely related

awesomerobot 10y ago

Doesn't Nest have like 1200 employees? What are they doing day-to-day? With that many people it seems like you'd almost release a product accidentally.

robotresearcher 10y ago
Nobody wants to be blamed for a flop.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Ah, yes! And because of the current team and structure of management, everyone involved, consciously or unconsciusly knows that it will be nothing but a flop. They make a move, they lose. They don't do anything they lose as well, it will just take longer. So they chose the second option.
simonswords82 10y ago
Infinite monkeys in a room armed with type writers will eventually write Shakespeare (or release a new product) but it'll take a very long time. Nest needs to innovate and rapidly evolve products very quickly to keep ahead of the market, which it seems includes their colleagues (madness). Given a team of that size and complexity nothing but the best management will get products out the door. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
- snowfield 10y ago
  Infinite monkeys will make it infinitely fast :P
chrisbennet 10y ago
What are they doing day-to-day? Working on their resumes' ?
elgabogringo 10y ago
Accidentally... love it.

TheGuyWhoCodes 10y ago

That's a nice 3B$ flop right there, 3.5B$ if you take the dropcam into account. Why couldn't they just focus on small inexpensive products that sell without thinking? Take chrome cast for example, great product, cheap price, don't really have to debate if I want to buy it. Hey Google, here is an idea, why don't you make an IoT button that can talk/control other devices like bttn or flic but costs just 5$ (I'm looking at you Amazon dash). They will sell like hotcakes! After that you can introduce some other products, maybe under the home brand, like a device that control your AC (it just needs to work, doesn't have to be apple like the Nest) or one that monitors your water heater. What about a small device that checks for leaks in your pipes. There is so much stuff todo here.

petra 10y ago
The chrome cast can bring digital advertising to the TV, and offer Google some control.So they can sell at cost. What does the a button or a flood sensor buy them ?
- TheGuyWhoCodes 10y ago
  I don't think they get much more in ad revenue because of chrome cast, if I want to watch something I'd watch it on my mobile or PC, casting to the TV is just more comfortable, it's not an enabler to something that wasn't watchable. Moreover chrome cast is used outside of google products like Plex, Netflix, HBO etc. Having a low bar for entry into the home is huge for a company which is all about data and insights.

revelation 10y ago

Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. Holy.. what are they all doing?

1945 10y ago

Hacker news is oddly obsessed with negative Nest press. Suspiciously so.

mwfunk 10y ago
Well, it's not like there's been any positive Nest press in the last year or so to obsess over. Based on the stories, what's been happening at Nest is an extreme case of many of the same organizational antipatterns that people in the tech industry see in their own companies on a smaller scale. The things that have happened at Nest (if the stories are to be believed) are like cancer to a tech company. If left unchecked those antipatterns can grow and consume a company, and can ultimately kill it. No amount of reform will save a company if they can no longer retain talent or recruit replacements of the same or better caliber. Given that so many HN readers are in the tech industry themselves, they probably worry about these kinds of cancers taking root at their own companies (I know I do). This stuff exists everywhere, it's just that for stable companies it's the exception and not the rule. I'm not surprised that it's been a hot topic.
- 1945 10y ago
  > Well, it's not like there's been any positive Nest press in the last year or so to obsess over. Their performance versus the rest of the Google ventures? The product line that was previously leaked? And, in the eyes of Hacker News perhaps celebrating Tony stepping aside. A lot of these stories, if they are in fact true, likely happened prior to Google acquisition and those people are now just feeling comfortable to speak out without the fear of it being spun as retaliation. I have a lot of faith that the Google HR department wouldn't tolerate any of the behavior, which is why it smells like a marketing campaign.

j0hnj0nes 10y ago

all of this comment and not a single one seems constructive... Nest the company problem as consumers (myself being one) seems to be Software... I use the nest software and simply put it's not up to scratch The Hardware is beautiful if only the software was... For example the nest protect has temperature sensors yet the Nest thermostat can not use these... Nor can the software operate without access to the "cloud" even in a reduced ability. Google OnHub suffers from the same Software problems, Great hardware and nice low level drivers however it cant even use IPv6 which for a router is pretty basic my advice for the incoming CEO, interoperability Simple make use of thread & brillo (software) to unify things... (produce an alarm but have the option of ADT as the responder) Unify the products so they can work within a LAN and expand outside of the USA. I hope that helps John