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I've had friends work for him and they described him as a hard driving, awful tyrant and generally an asshole. He's clearly intelligent but his personality seem
by xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
I've had friends work for him and they described him as a hard driving, awful tyrant and generally an asshole. He's clearly intelligent but his personality seems like a bit of a tire fire. The Forstall thing makes more sense in that context, at least to me.
- Apocryphon 4y agoI wonder if Fadell is similar in his own way, from what it sounds like, Nest was a very top-down, stringent environment, which is why it didn't play well with the more open and casual Google after acquisition.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y agoAh I was referring to Fadell but I understand the ambiguity now.
- Apocryphon 4y agoAh. Then that proves my suspicions about Nest. I wonder how Forstall is as a leader, then.
- diffxx 4y agoI think it may also depend on your role in the company. I knew someone who worked in marketing at Nest both before and after Fadell's departure. We met a little bit after he'd left and they were struggling a bit because they had essentially felt that they just needed to tailor their work to his taste and it didn't really matter what anyone else thought. Things got harder without that strong personality at the top and more people to please (with arguably worse taste). They were perhaps just short of a true believer, but they did have a lot of respect for him. On the other hand, it didn't seem like he drove the marketing team nearly as hard as the engineers. The media reports that followed his departure described something bordering on a reign of terror that my friend didn't exactly deny but didn't seem to have been subjected to directly.
- smugma 4y agoI’ve heard the same about people who worked directly with Fadell. However, your last comment made me LOL because Forstall had the same reputation!