Tony Fadell: Why You Can't Be a Solo Founder; Mercenary vs. Missionary Operators | 20VC #910

Tony Fadell 0:00 Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination.

Harry Stebbings 0:08 Tony, we've done this a couple of times, and, uh, we always start with the intro. And so we're gonna totally skip that today, and we're gonna dive straight into, um... The New York Times did 36 questions of love, and so these are the most revealing questions to tell whether this person is a match. Um, so lucky you, Tony, we've got a fun hour ahead of us. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 0:29 Oh. Oh, my God. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 0:30 It is-

Tony Fadell 0:31 Where is this going?

Harry Stebbings 0:32 Yeah, no...

Tony Fadell 0:33 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 0:33 So, we're gonna start with one which I thought was really interesting. Someone asked me the other day. And it's: when you reflect on your childhood, is there anything... Or what one thing would you have changed most?

Tony Fadell 0:45 In my childhood?

Harry Stebbings 0:46 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 0:48 (laughs) I think I would've liked to not move... M- have... To have moved so many times. Right? I went to 12 schools in 15 years. I do think it's important to have moved schools and moved town, but I didn't go- need to go 12 out of 15 years. You know, it could have been six and I could have learned the same lessons without all the other issues, you know? So it could be half. It could have been half as much, and I still would have gotten all the lessons learned.

Harry Stebbings 1:17 How did it impact you?

Tony Fadell 1:20 Well, look, when you're always the new kid, right? Have you ever been a new kid in school, Harry?

Harry Stebbings 1:25 Um, yes, I have, once. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 1:28 And how did it feel to you?

Harry Stebbings 1:29 Fucking brutal, but I had no friends anyway, so it was moving from net no friends to net no friends again. (laughs) And so...

Tony Fadell 1:35 Well, guess what? Try that 12 times.

Harry Stebbings 1:38 That's tough.

Tony Fadell 1:40 Yeah, it's tough. But you also learn to cope and you also learn. You become an observer of what's going on in front of you, and you start to see that cliques are the same everywhere. They just might have different ways of s- their slang, or their fashion, or whatever. But there's these groups, and human nature's the same everywhere, so I got to see that growing up, of like here's all those things. And then you just... And luckily, the computer came, and the computer was my friend that traveled with me wherever I went. I could like log on to bulletin board systems, BBSs. I could hack the phone system to talk to... You know, when calls were $2 a minute, I could hack the phone system and do free calls to talk to my friend. You know, the other geek friends that I had in other, you know, cities that I left, right? So we could stay connected 'cause we didn't have the web, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have Zoom and social networks. The best we could do was the phone or a bulletin board system, which, you know, it was literally just... It's like text chat. Like, that's

Tony Fadell 2:38 all it is.

Harry Stebbings 2:38 Did that experience impact how you raise your children today in terms of fatherhood, how you bring them up, how you treat them in terms of their schooling? Did it impact that?

Tony Fadell 2:49 Uh, yes. One is, it is incumbent on parents to make sure that they teach their children how to be resilient to change. The world is changing faster than ever. It was very different than my parents' generation where they could live in the same town, go to the same schools with the same people, and more or less they'd probably end up working there or what have you. In this modern day and age, s- you know, we are, we are gonna be more global than ever. The kids have to understand to be comfortable with moving, working in different cultures with different people, um, different languages, different systems. And so, if you can teach them that when they're young and have that resiliency, they'll be less scared as they get older, right? And when they have to make changes for their jobs or their family or who knows what it is. But if they've only grown up knowing one way of being, and then they're in their 20s and they're out of college or whatever it is, and all of a sudden, da-ding, now it's time to move, they'd be like, "What do I do? Ah."

Tony Fadell 3:52 Right?

Harry Stebbings 3:53 So, how do you do that as a parent? I read recently it's by never telling them what to do because it makes them self-reliant on their own decisions. How do you think about giving them that ability-

Tony Fadell 4:03 Well, one, we move. Right? We moved from the U.S. to Paris.

Harry Stebbings 4:07 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 4:08 And then we moved again to Bali, right, and put them to school in different schools along the way, and then came back to Paris. So, that was a big thing, was just, you know, moving around and going to, you know, the... Silicon Valley versus Paris versus Bali. Those are pretty different places, I think, right? Very different. Very different schools, very different ways of being.

Tony Fadell 4:32 And so...

Harry Stebbings 4:32 I had, I had, I had Chris Sacca on the show, and he said that this generation of helicopter parents has bred a generation of arsehole kids. Do you agree with that?

Tony Fadell 4:40 (laughs) I think any kids that are doted upon too much, who do not h- have the benefit to find their way, the struggle, the productive struggle to find their way in the world, and their parents are always like, "Uh..." Yeah, no, they don't... These, these kids either are... You know, they're either, um, spoiled or they think everything, um, comes easy, right? They don't have that struggle with the real world, and they have to have that. And so you have to throw them into those, into those, um-

Harry Stebbings 5:16 Situations.

Tony Fadell 5:16 ... situations, right, and be able to scaffold them, because they're... And they're not gonna go well. You know, my son just went off to, to, um, boarding school, and this was his first year ba- uh, first s- summer back from boarding school. And, you know, there was the schoolwork, but then learning all the social stuff and, you know, getting his clothes cleaned and, you know, just worrying about do I need, you know, uh, clothes for this winter versus the spring. And just, how do I get food? You know, just all that stuff of learning to live by yourself, going to boarding school. Like, that's a huge step, and like he's a totally more mature kid, um, th- just than he was seven months ago.

Harry Stebbings 5:56 Tony, if you pay enough in the UK, you don't have to worry about any of that. Trust me. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 6:01 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 6:03 (laughs) I, I remember my bed nicely pressed every day. Um, but, uh-

Tony Fadell 6:06 Well, yeah, then, then there you go.

Harry Stebbings 6:08 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 6:08 See, that's the other thing is, they might even leave home where there's less and they get even more at boarding school. Like, come on, they're not living in a freaking, you know, in a, a five-star hotel.

Harry Stebbings 6:17 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 6:18 It's like ƒ... Hey, that's like not the real world. What are you preparing them for?

Harry Stebbings 6:21 So any boarding school in London or the UK is £40,000 a year. That's $65,000.

Tony Fadell 6:27 Well, why do you... So guess what? Why do you think, why do you think y- kids can grow up to be such, you know, arseholes? You know? It's like, "Oh, give me everything." You know, it's like, well, don't give 'em everything. They... You gotta, you know, you gotta be the, the, uh, you have to set the example for them, right?

Harry Stebbings 6:44 Can I, can I ask, you know,

Harry Stebbings 6:46 p- when, when you think about like, kids growing up to be arseholes, I think about entitlement. And that takes me to like, not badly, but just knowing you'd be successful. Like, when I was younger, even when I had no right, I always knew I would work my ass off and somehow make something.

Tony Fadell 7:03 Sure.

Harry Stebbings 7:03 Did you know that you would be successful?

Tony Fadell 7:08 It depends on how you define success.

Harry Stebbings 7:10 I knew that I would build something of value and make money, always.

Tony Fadell 7:15 I knew that I could make money because in s- second, third grade I had an egg, egg route. I was delivering eggs, right? So I went around and I was like, "Oh my God, I can sell eggs, I can make money, and I can have some form of independence." That's what I got hooked on, and then I kept doing more and more of that, right? Because I was like, "Oh, money brings independence. I can try different things," you know? And so, that's where the, kind of the flywheel started spinning, and then I just, you know, through the computer I find all this other stuff and I knew kind of what a business was since third grade. I was like, "Oh, that's what you do." So I was never about getting a job. It was always about, "Ho, where am I going to, you know, to do whatever it is I wanna do and make money with it?" Right?

Harry Stebbings 7:58 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 7:58 And so, that's how I, you know, I got programmed early on to, to think that way.

Harry Stebbings 8:02 You said it was never about

Harry Stebbings 8:03 getting a job. Did you... You know, when, when one reads your bio, Tony, they go like, "Oh, fuck. This, (laughs) this guy's insanely, like, just up and to the right." Was there ever a moment when you were like, "Oh, shit. Like, I don't... This next role, I don't see coming." Or, like, "I don't... I feel really plateauing." Were you didn't feel up and to the right?

Tony Fadell 8:23 Well, well first, you have to look at everything but General Magic, almost... and some, like, you know, high school job, a couple of high school jobs. But really, during my career after leaving school, um, um, and even during school, I created all my positions except for General Magic. I created the product or I created the division, I created the team, whatever it was. So I always made the thing I was going to, except for General Magic. So at Philips, right, I, I wrote the business plan, showed the product, and then got them to sign off and now build the, build the team. Fuse, my s- my startup, right? At Apple, here I come with the idea, you know, and sh- here's the iPod. Okay, now build the team, build the position, right? Right?

Harry Stebbings 9:10 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 9:10 And then Nest. So each time, even b- you know, even in college, when I was doing my own semiconductor business and softer stuff, I created those jobs too. So I've never waited for someone to give me a handout, except for General

Tony Fadell 9:24 Magic.

Harry Stebbings 9:24 Do you think that's possible today? For people listening, within a firm, d- within a company, within a startup, do you think it's possible to just create your own role, and how would you advise them?

Tony Fadell 9:34 Well, w- the way is you show value. So you go and say, "I think we should be doing this new thing." Right? Whether that's a, uh, whether that's a new product or it could be just a new process or a new way of thinking. Because if you don't, if you just wait for everyone to give stuff to you, they think it's just a one-way relationship. If you come back and you say, "Here's the value I can offer, here's the things I see at our level," and engage in that conversation, and maybe c- and you'll probably get shot down many times, but don't stop. Keep trying, listen to them, and then keep modulating the ideas and the plans in your presentations based on the feedback you're getting. And if it, at some point you just run into a wall, like I did at General Magic, you leave and go do it. Right? Because that's what happens in most big companies, is people with value and have the right, um, um, how could I say, energy to literally say, "I think this should be right." Then, you know, uh, the powers that be say, "We're not gonna do it," that's the perfect way to go spin, go out, and start a startup. You know, you see this all the time in various comp- big companies, uh, uh, in Silicon Valley. "Hey, I got this idea." "Ah, well, ah, no, we can't do that." "Okay, I'm gonna go do a startup." Right? And g- you leave and you go build it, because you see the value you can bring or the differentiating you can bring, 'cause you're inside the big company seeing all the competitors and what's out there and you're like, "You know, they're not really hitting the mark. Okay, let's go over here and build it ourselves." That's, you know, that's, uh, that's the nice thing. And we have more tools than ever now to do that, in terms of all the free tools, the internet, you know, virtual and, and hybrid work environments, find people on LinkedIn or what have you, like you find people. You know, it's like, oh my God, i- i- it's actually easier than ever. Try doing it in 1990, you know, and 1995 when there was no internet.

Harry Stebbings 11:16 I mean, listen, the first episode I ever did, I found Guy Kawasaki's email in the source code of guykawasaki.com and talked to him then.

Tony Fadell 11:24 There you go.

Harry Stebbings 11:26 Um-

Tony Fadell 11:26 Right. Guy, Guy's a great guy, you know?

Harry Stebbings 11:29 Great guy. I mean, he gave me an 18-year-old time, so, uh, what a hero. Um, listen, we spoke about kind of children learning through strife. I mentioned this was another New York Times love question. Um, but I'm interested... (laughs)

Tony Fadell 11:42 Let's keep going.

Harry Stebbings 11:42 Let's keep doing it 'cause I'm actually starting a new dating show.

Tony Fadell 11:45 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 11:45 This is my way into the dating world. Um, uh-

Tony Fadell 11:48 Oh, God. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 11:50 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 11:50 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 11:51 Fuck me. Um, the question is... (laughs) Um-

Tony Fadell 11:54 My friend's CEO of Tinder if you need any help.

Harry Stebbings 11:56 Oh, that's wonderful. I might be a great second guest. Um, uh, no, my...

Tony Fadell 12:00 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 12:01 (laughs) My question to you is, um, and

Harry Stebbings 12:03 it's actually a serious one, which is like when you look at your professional career, what was the most difficult but valuable lesson that you learned which you're actually really pleased to have gone through even though it was so difficult?Wow.

Tony Fadell 12:17 What, what disaster did I really love? Um-

Harry Stebbings 12:21 Who you learnt the most from. Like, for me it was-

Tony Fadell 12:23 Well, it was, uh, it, to me, it was really the, the failure of General Magic. That was the biggest, that was the biggest, um, learning, both personally and professionally, um, from a business perspective, from a product perspective, um, um, like I said, personally. It was so, it was so gut-wrenching that it took, you know, months, years afterwards to kind of dig myself out of that and learn, and it, it really restarted me. It was kind of, in a way, version, personally, version 2.0 of Tony started then.

Harry Stebbings 13:02 Can

Harry Stebbings 13:03 I-

Tony Fadell 13:03 Maybe or 3.0, depending on how you-

Harry Stebbings 13:04 Why, why did you feel that intense responsibility? So I, I know obviously you put your heart and soul into it, it's a big part of your life, but it wasn't yours like Nest was. Um, why do you think you felt that intense accountability as a founder?

Tony Fadell 13:19 Well, because we were on a mission. We were on a mission, and the people, we were shoulder to shoulder together building this thing. And so for me, you know, it was like, um, you, you know, that's what the skill of a great leader is, is to take the mission and the ideas, your, you know, the founder's ideas or the other people on the team and just say, "They're now yours. Go run with it. Make it your own." Right? And if you have a leader who does that, within reason, of course, you know, but allows you to run with it, especially where it was all s- it was a sandbox and I could just go, "I'm gonna go build this today and this today and this today," and you're just, you feel like you're part of this, this team doing more, you know, something really big, uh, it's hard n- and you feel empowered and, you know, you have agency to help and, and impress your heroes, I don't see how you don't, you know, have that kind of attachment to something. You know, it's, it's really hard. Or obviously you're just, you're not in the right place, you know, if you, if you can't find that kind of, um, mission-driven

Tony Fadell 14:23 work ethic.

Harry Stebbings 14:24 Do you think we still have those missionary operators today? I feel like today we have a lot more of a mercenary environment, be it around switching jobs, switching companies. That intense missionary perspective is very lacking, I find. Do you agree?

Tony Fadell 14:39 T- Uh, no. I think, I think, you know, uh, just like there are the great leaders and not-so-great leaders, or the great companies and not-so-great, great employees, not-so... Look, at all cases, it's a Gaussian distribution, right? (laughs) And the people at the top, it's a small, narrow set, right? And, and companies there as well. So there's a lot of wheat, a lot of chaff with the w- and, you know, scarce wheat, so to speak. And so of course you can find great mission-driven leaders. I get to see that all the time with the companies that we, we work with and, you know, in, um, in, uh, uh, uh, Future Shape. So look, you know, I... Like, here's one. Like, uh, mission-driven, like I could talk to, about Rachel DeLacour, uh, at Sweep, or I can talk about, uh, Gilberto over at Smartex over in Porto, Portugal. I could talk about all these different leaders that are... and these teams are on a mission. Like, and, and you can feel it when you go in there. And when I feel that, when I see that v- coming out of not just the leader but the team around them, you're like, "I gotta invest in them because they really beli- give, they really understand, ass- assuming they've done all the right things, you know, in terms of operationally, and they're not just, you know, emotionally blinded, but they're also rational in how they go about doing their business." I'm like, "This is the team I wanna work with. How can I get, be a part of it? 'Cause I wanna be part of that mission in helping

Tony Fadell 15:58 them." Right?

Harry Stebbings 15:59 For found- for founders that listen who want to inspire the same missionary culture within their team, from the leaders that you've worked with, what did the best do to make you feel the ownership and accountability that you did with the likes of General Magic?

Tony Fadell 16:14 I think the biggest one is, uh, a few things. One is, you know, there's not this intense hierarchy that you can only pass messages up the chain and down the chain and, you know, the silos or the si... Like, there's got to be this kind of m- really interesting mix of people and coming together in the culture of different ideas. That's one thing. The second thing is, a leader who can see great ideas when people bring them up. And may, uh, you know, they're, they maybe, or they're just trying. They might be, they might be close to a great idea but they're trying, and you say, "Yes. More of that," and encouraging that, encouraging ideas to come forward, encouraging people. And, and if they, and if you have an idea, the leader, you go, "I wanna see you make my, you know, make this idea better for us." Right? So if I have an idea, I have to give it up to them and, right? So you have to have this dialogue where p- people really feel like they're a part of it, one. Second thing is that the leader is in it and they are not just delegating. They're in the details, they'll talk to different people at different levels. They can see that if their, uh, the leader can see problems, and they'll go and address them right away too, right? Within reason. Um, because typically, the teams know the issues before the leaders do, and they'll, they're just waiting for the leader to do something. And a lot, too many times, the leader's just like, "Nah, I'm not gonna deal with it today. Not gonna deal with it today. Next week. Oh, that's such a headache, I'll deal with it..." And it lingers and it eats on the team. So the more that the leader is involved and they s- and those, and those indi- individuals see that you're involved and that you're talking about ideas and not afraid to change directions without, within reason, again, you know, that there is a, uh, relationship, not just the delegation, those kind of things all inspire. Obviously the mission has also gotta be something that matters to the people inside. It's not just making money. It's never just about making money. It's about changing the world for the better, and that people can get around it, because what they wanna do is they wanna go home, if they can, and talk to their family, talk to their friends about it, their extended family about it, and be proud.... right? That's just like, you know, you're a proud owner of a new product and you- you're the- it- you're the word of mouth marketing of it, right? I'm so proud of all the people who've read Build. And then they go off and they tell their friends and they give gift copies to them, and I'm, like, just, like, it's kind of- it's now that's theirs. And they're like, "Now I'm on a mission..." And you- I- me, not me, but the person who bought the book or whatever is giving to others like, "I found this. You gotta try it," right? And it doesn't matter whether it's a gadget, it's a physical book. It could be a food or a restaurant or a, a club or whatever it is, a band. Like, when you give that to somebody and then they feel it and then they d- do the word of mouth, that's when you know there's something

Tony Fadell 19:06 good going on.

Harry Stebbings 19:07 And speaking of kind of really feeling it and taking that back to the mission, um, I- I do have to ask also, you know, I had Doug Leone on the show from Sequoia, and he said, you know-

Tony Fadell 19:15 Sure.

Harry Stebbings 19:15 ... "Sequoia is a team, not a family. Performance is number one." And I listened to that, and I was like, "Yeah. That's the same as my fund. Yeah." And I said this to the team, and they were like, "Yeah, yeah." And then a couple of them had problems in life, and I was like, "I'm here for you. I support you." And I was like, "What the fuck? I'm not a team. I'm a family." Like, and so I was... But then I'm like, "Well-"

Tony Fadell 19:41 No, no, no. There's a difference. Wait. There's different. It's close to family, but it isn't family.

Harry Stebbings 19:49 Okay. Help me.

Tony Fadell 19:51 Okay. There's family, and then there is an ex- like, an extended family where we're all just learning to get along, and then there's a, there, and then there's the atomic family with parental units and kids and stuff like that. So, and then there's a team. There's something in between, which is the leader is like a coach, okay? And he believes in the team members, just like you, as a parent, you're not a parent yet. One day you may feel these things. You-

Harry Stebbings 20:24 I've actually got 12. This dating show went really well, and I've now got 12 kids. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 20:30 (laughs) I'm not going there. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 20:33 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 20:33 Um, uh, so w- i- what happens is, is you want th- when you're a parent, you want the best for your child, and you're never gonna stop loving them, okay? And family, you'll, d- they're a family, right? And extended family, you know, there are those people in your family you love and there's those people in the family, like the black sheep of the family, so to speak, that, you know, you just go, "Okay, they're part of the family. We just have to put up with them." And then there's the team and the coach, okay? On the other side. A c- a- a, a leader has to in, in, m- has to be a parent sometimes, they have to be a coach sometimes, and then they have to be a CEO sometimes. The CEO will hire and fire people. The coach w- will believe in and, and push you, uh, and, and believe in you, okay? And say, "We're here for the team, and what's the best thing on the team?" And then there's the parent, which is you're pushing that individual to be better, okay? You have to look at individual versus team versus hiring and firing. In other words, the, the coach may remove somebody, okay? But it's gonna take a while for that because they really look at the, the whole team. The parent can never remove anyone, right? You can't remove anyone. But you're gonna push people to get, you know, the kids to get better, and you're gonna throw risks their way to make them better, just like I was saying about moving.

Harry Stebbings 22:09 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 22:10 The CEO can hire and fire. Like, it's g- it's gonna be very much unemotional. We're going from unemotional to the most emotional, right? The CEO is the le- least emotional, the parent is the most emotional. The coach is in between. You have to figure out which of the three you're gonna be for any given time with any

Tony Fadell 22:29 given person.

Harry Stebbings 22:30 Where are you best? Where are you worst?

Tony Fadell 22:35 Where am I best? Where am I worst?

Harry Stebbings 22:36 Yeah. When you think back to when you were CEO. For me, I'm, pfff, I'm probably the best coach and I'm the worst CEO. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 22:47 Uh, I'm, I- I'm, I'm on the coach side.

Harry Stebbings 22:49 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 22:49 I wanna be on the coach side, and then I will fall back on the CEO side when I know that we're hitting a wall and that this person, while they might be a great person, unless they're just, you know, you know, they have their issues and you gotta get rid of them. That's an easy one. It's when these people are in the middle where they're like, they're really good people, they're really nice people, but they're really not cut out for this culture, this work style, whatever, when you have to just say, "Look, you're good, but j- we are gonna have to let you go."

Harry Stebbings 23:17 What if they're okay for a stage? I've had this before where it's like people are like, "No, if they're not great, you gotta get rid of them." Well, sometimes people are okay for a stage and they'll come back.

Tony Fadell 23:27 Yeah. There's no, there's no problem with that. And, and, and, but what you have to do as their men- uh, as their manager is you have to tell them that. You have to say, "Look, we're growing. I see- think this next stage is gonna be good for you, but the stage afterwards, you need to go work on certain things to, to get you there 'cause otherwise we're gonna have to get a manager on top of you to," right? "To, to lead." So you, i- that's the job of the coach/parent to go, "Look, I see things that you're not seeing. You're gonna need to address those or you're not gonna be with us, you know, th- as a coach very long."

Harry Stebbings 24:00 When you were a sole founder, Tony, were you lonely?

Tony Fadell 24:05 Are you kidding me? Absolutely.

Harry Stebbings 24:07 How do you, how... Okay. So I have this now. You know, I had a co-founder before. Tony, what is, what's the clicking? (laughs)

Tony Fadell 24:13 Oh. Look at this. Watch this. I'll put it up so they can't... Watch this. (clicking noise)

Harry Stebbings 24:19 Oh, wow.

Tony Fadell 24:20 Wow.

Harry Stebbings 24:21 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 24:22 Hm. That's a pen.

Harry Stebbings 24:23 To- Tony's gonna give a signed pen away. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 24:25 It's my, my ASMR pen.

Harry Stebbings 24:28 If y- if, if you send a picture on Twitter with you and The Build Book, he will sign a copy of that.

Tony Fadell 24:34 I love this pen, by the way. Yes, I'll sign that pen.

Harry Stebbings 24:36 Pe- pe- pen

Harry Stebbings 24:37 maybe not, actually. Um, but no, like okay, then help me out. I've had co-founders before. I'm now a sole founder. I find it fucking lonely. There are things that sometimes only you can know and work on. How-

Tony Fadell 24:48 That's why I say you need a co-founder.

Harry Stebbings 24:51 Do you? Or do you need to get on with it?

Tony Fadell 24:53 You need a co-founder.

Harry Stebbings 24:55 Really?

Tony Fadell 24:56 You need a co-founder.

Harry Stebbings 24:57 Why?

Tony Fadell 24:58 Because there's... One, they should be complementary with your skills.

Harry Stebbings 25:01 Mm-hmm.

Tony Fadell 25:02 Two, you need a partner who you can share all the things you can't talk to the board about or you can't talk to the management team about. You can't go talk to your significant other because they don't have enough context, right? And they don't want you bringing home work all the time. So you need somebody who when you're down, can lift you up or vice versa, or can see things that you don't see. We're n- n- we're n- there's no such thing as 100 or 360 degree perfect person who knows everything and can just hang. There are times, you know, when you're just going through it... Or maybe you have family issues and you need somebody to carry the load so you can go deal with your family and come back to this. Like-

Harry Stebbings 25:40 Does that hold true, does that hold true?

Tony Fadell 25:40 ... it's just really hard. It's just so hard to be a single founder in a s- any kind of growing company.

Harry Stebbings 25:48 Does that hold true though when you look at the best? When you look at Zuck, when you look at Elon, when you look at Steve Jobs? They were alone at the top, so to speak.

Tony Fadell 25:58 Steve had Steve.

Harry Stebbings 26:00 (laughs) Okay.

Tony Fadell 26:03 Steve had Steve Wozniak.

Harry Stebbings 26:04 Ah.

Tony Fadell 26:07 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 26:07 This was the early days.

Tony Fadell 26:09 Yeah, but still. He had to k- have some help at some point. At some point. Then you create this whole network around you, maybe you can get that, right?

Harry Stebbings 26:17 Mm-hmm.

Tony Fadell 26:17 Steve had Tim.

Harry Stebbings 26:19 Hmm.

Tony Fadell 26:21 Okay? Larry had Sergey. Y- Elon's not the CEO of SpaceX.

Harry Stebbings 26:30 This is true.

Tony Fadell 26:32 Right? There, y- there's a lot of companies out there, you go through them, a lot of them have co-founders. I don't like any th- I don't like companies with more than three co-founders. I prefer it with two. Three can get a li- as long as people are, but four or above, forget. I don't wanna go there. If it's a single, it's hard for me unless I see that the team has... And, and the team, the people around them or c- one person at least, has the, maybe not has the founder title but has significant holdings in the company

Tony Fadell 27:03 so that they're part of that mission too.

Harry Stebbings 27:05 You know the, you know the pairing-

Tony Fadell 27:06 And they won't just leave.

Harry Stebbings 27:07 The pairing that I've always had work is one heavy sales person and one heavy technical person. When you have the two there, it's f- like 99% work.

Tony Fadell 27:18 The, well, that's in a B2B company. You know, if you're in, if you're more consumer, you're gonna have more marketing or product marketing plus tech.

Harry Stebbings 27:26 Mm-hmm.

Tony Fadell 27:26 Okay? Because what you're talking about is Sa- uh, yeah, I think you're t- referring to SaaS business where you really have to know the market, the channel, you have to have the network. And then you bury the, put the two together. Sure. And B2C is different. But I agree with all that.

Harry Stebbings 27:39 Yeah. No, I, I-

Tony Fadell 27:41 Right.

Harry Stebbings 27:41 Uh, you know,

Harry Stebbings 27:42 speaking of kind of (laughs) loneliness there, I was reading this great book, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, Build obviously, but, uh, Richer, Happier, Wiser or whatever it's called, and it said, "The best investors have the willingness to be lonely." And bluntly I thought about this with a little bit about what you've done in Future Shape in the past. You know, today climate and climate change obviously the hottest thing on the agenda. When you started, it wasn't.

Tony Fadell 28:06 Everybody's like, "You're nuts."

Harry Stebbings 28:07 Yeah, exactly. And so-

Tony Fadell 28:08 Everyone's like, w- I was nuts.

Harry Stebbings 28:10 And so my question to you is like, how do you think about the willingness to be lonely? How did you get comfortable with being called crazy? Why...

Tony Fadell 28:18 Hey, you know what? I think it's the other way around. See, I, see, you're, you're looking at it from the negative point of view. I look at it from the positive point of view. I zig while others are zagging. I go, I, I've always gone counter to where, uh, I go to where the future is beyond where it is today and I go beyond that. So in 1994, '95, the internet was everything in Silicon Valley. Don't talk to me about... I'm like, "Forget it. I'm gonna stay here doing my devices things because I believe this is needs to exist. I see why it should exist." And I kept doing that, and then it became the iPod and then it became the iPhone. And I hadn't, didn't get off that track, whereas everybody's like, "Fidel, you're crazy. Go to the internet. Stop dealing with these Adams things. It's just about big scale, people online, that's..." I'm like, "No, the future's gonna need these things." And then bing, bing, bing. Right? And, and the same thing comes with climate ch- the climate change stuff. Like, in 2014, we were one of the first checks in, uh, Impossible Foods. People are like, "Impossible Foods? Plant-based meat? What?" I'm like, "You'll see. This is where we need to go." And then all of a sudden, boom, now everybody's got a plant-based meat alternative, god knows what. There's probably 700, 800 companies out there, all chasing it. But we were there at the beginning before it was en vogue. I've always learned zig while others are zagging. Go to the, the longer term, more beneficial things. Don't just... If everybody's already there, and, and this is always the case with a stock, if everybody's already there, well why the hell... It's already overpriced usually. It's usually already over, like there's too many people on it. They're all just chasing because they want data. They don't have a good enough gut, they don't have a good enough opinion on what the future looks like to commit themselves to it. That's what I do. Everybody else wants data. And the only way to get data is when everybody's there getting the, those hard numbers and saying, "Okay, now I'm convinced to go in there because everyone else is there." But guess what? Everyone else is there already. You gotta trust your opinion. That's that g- the data versus opinion driven decision in the book. Just that d- whether that's investing, long range, whether that's a new product, a new service, a new company.... you do it while it's still opinion, and you think you have the right idea when there is no data. In absence of the real data to say you should go for it with the idea you have.

Harry Stebbings 30:38 Okay, so let's double down here. You've been, in 2014, you say, "No, impossible food's fantastic." Everyone goes, "Tony, you're out of your mind."

Tony Fadell 30:47 Yep.

Harry Stebbings 30:48 In that moment, and in that proceeding few months, do you have self-doubt, or are you unwaveringly sure that you are right in your position? One.

Tony Fadell 30:58 No, uh, because look, every single, almost every single thing I've ever done, the first thing is, the incumbents laugh at you. So whe- whether it was at iPod, what happens, Microsoft laughs, "Ha ha ha ha ha."

Harry Stebbings 31:12 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 31:12 iPhone, well, iPhone comes out. Nokia, "Ha ha ha ha ha." Nest, Honeywell, "Ha ha ha ha ha." Then they sue you. Then they join in.

Harry Stebbings 31:23 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 31:23 Right? If they're still around. So every time somebody's like, "Tony, you're crazy," I'm like, "Mm, I might be crazy, or I might be crazy smart." And I've learned to trust myself, and l- because I stay o- feet on the ground. I don't have advisors telling me. I don't... I read the n- I read all el- uh, voraciously. I watch tech. I watch where the disruptions are happening. I watch where society's going, and I link th- these things up and where the incumbents are, and go, "Are they gonna get there?" So this is not like you give it to a team and they come back with answers. You gotta sink yourself in it. You gotta be part of it. You gotta really feel it.

Harry Stebbings 31:59 So-

Tony Fadell 31:59 Just like I felt the thermostat, the need for this thermostat, right? 'Cause I

Tony Fadell 32:03 go to where the pain is.

Harry Stebbings 32:05 (laughs) My, my question is, I totally get you when you're crazy smart. There has to be times when you are just crazy. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 32:11 Yeah, um, sure. There absolutely has to-

Harry Stebbings 32:12 And how do you know when to pull the plug versus when to persist, when to go, "You know what? I was wrong. I missed this one." Versus-

Tony Fadell 32:21 Well, well, look, sometimes it's not a directional issue. Sometimes it is the right direction, it's the wrong team.

Harry Stebbings 32:27 Hmm.

Tony Fadell 32:29 Okay? So the things that we're betting on are typically the right direction. There's very few times when the direction was wrong. It was that the team wasn't up to the challenge that they had, the mission they had went on. The mission was right, but the team was not up to the challenge, and they could not, you know, be, be mature enough or become professionalized enough to actually take that opportunity and turn it into something. Or maybe the technology was just too early, right? Timing, just like General Magic was too early. You know, we see that all the time. I've seen founder, first-time founders or second-time founders come out, and the technology wasn't right. But then we reinvested it with them after we took all those learnings and said, "Oh, now here's the real way to do it." Right? That's the other thing, is just because you're, you might be crazy or crazy early and you failed, doesn't mean you should stop. You, when y- you fail only if you stop. You might be on the right track. It was just the wrong timing, the wrong team, you didn't have l- uh, whatever it was. Then you keep at it, and then it turns into something. Just like it was for me, from General Magic to, to, to, to, you know, Philips, then to Apple, to whatever. I just kept at it because I knew the direction was right, even though the teams I was working with, or even m- myself, because I was working on myself, was wrong.

Tony Fadell 33:45 It was, just wasn't the right thing yet.

Harry Stebbings 33:47 Can I ask a bit of a, well, I mean, first actually I want to ask, you've mentioned reading voraciously. How do you decide what to read? The selection process for me is like highly flawed, and I end up reading stuff that's not great, and then I churn and it, I just kind of waste time. How do you determine what to read?

Tony Fadell 34:02 By reading so much that you start to pick up on trends. So too many people read like just a few things and they go, "Oh, I'll get it from that." No, I, I want signal to noise, so I'm gonna have lots of, m- maybe a lot of noise, but sometimes those signals start to come together and they show me, "Oh, I've read about this like four times now. Now I gotta start paying attention." So there's one which is, there's noise, then there's, you're getting signals for the next thing, and then you go, "Okay, I," you put that in your brain, go, "If I read another five articles about this, maybe I should start paying attention."

Harry Stebbings 34:35 I gotcha.

Tony Fadell 34:35 Do you see what I mean?

Harry Stebbings 34:36 Mm-hmm.

Tony Fadell 34:36 Then after that I'm like, then I go, "Oh, I should start paying..." Now I start learning and go, "What are they really saying?" Then, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. And then I go, "Maybe I'm gonna find some entrepreneurs in this section and start learning from them, because they've been spending more time on it," right? So it all first starts with, what are the areas that I'm most important, uh, are most important to me? That's health, society, and the planet. And then I'm reading about the different problems, maybe some technological solutions, 'cause I'm de- I'm reading about technology, I'm reading about politics, I'm reading about governments, I'm reading about, you know, um, that, that given, what's the latest in that given area that I talked about? And then you just kind of, you, you s- get a lot of noise, but then sometimes the signal shows up because you've seen enough hits and you go, "Okay, now I go to the next level, which is now talking to people inside of it, getting their ideas, starting to form my own opinions." I've been doing on this on plastics for the last six years now. I'm getting really down the thing to really know w- how to help th- in that way, but it takes time. Most people don't want to in- invest the time. They just want the answers. See, to me, my curiosity, that's the way I feed my brain. That's my oxygen, is by learning all these things at the ground level, and, and, n- w- l- w- listening and reading lots of noise till I find signal and I go, "Chu," and then I lock on, and I go, "Bang." And then I'm like, "Okay, let's take this to the logical next steps

Tony Fadell 35:57 to see if there's a there there."

Harry Stebbings 35:59 Can I ask you a weird one? But it's one that w- we chatted about before the show, and you said like, "Oh, you gotta look after yourself, Harry," and I said, "Ah, only for 10 years, fun life cycle."

Tony Fadell 36:08 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 36:09 A- and I, I align like happiness to milestones, which I know is wrong, but it's human na-

Tony Fadell 36:16 No, dude.

Harry Stebbings 36:16 No, but it's human nature. It is very normal to-

Tony Fadell 36:19 No.

Harry Stebbings 36:19 How...

Tony Fadell 36:20 It's a journey.

Harry Stebbings 36:21 Okay. Okay, so how do you think about detaching yourself in that way and not aligning yourself to the next fund, the next IPO, the next whatever? How do you advise me?

Tony Fadell 36:33 Because I don't deal with numbers.I deal with ideas and missions. The numbers are tertiary. I worry about the things that matter and the problems to be solved, and then the money is second or third order. Us- usually everybody else in the money world, they're all, that's all they care about is the money. "Okay, I gotta go with this because I gotta get LPs," right? Da, da, da. I've never... You know, when I talk to most people in, in investment outside of the VC world, even in, s- a lot of times in the VC world, they're all like Wall Street. "Where's the numbers?"

Harry Stebbings 37:03 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 37:03 "Where's this? Show me that. Do I need the revenue?" I'm like, "I'm talking about ideas before there's any

Tony Fadell 37:08 revenue." There might be three people, right?

Harry Stebbings 37:10 I, I don't think there-

Tony Fadell 37:10 And I look at the problem.

Harry Stebbings 37:11 Is that a luxury, respectfully, because you're not a VC? Like, you have to think about portfolio construction.

Tony Fadell 37:16 Yeah, but I'm thinking about what I was thinking in the '90s and 2000s where it's like, "What's next?"

Harry Stebbings 37:24 (laughs) True.

Tony Fadell 37:25 I, I was doing things before, like, I was an investor, before I had made tons of money, right?

Harry Stebbings 37:31 Di-

Tony Fadell 37:31 Because I c- I was reading, I was like, I was synthesizing things and seeing things come together in my brain and saying, "This is the way I'm gonna go."

Harry Stebbings 37:38 Did money change you, Tony?

Tony Fadell 37:43 Did it change me? Of c- Well, it makes you allow, allows you to have a cushion so that you can take bigger risks, sure.

Harry Stebbings 37:50 Right.

Tony Fadell 37:50 But I've always taken risks.

Harry Stebbings 37:53 What bigger risks have you taken that you wouldn't have taken without money?

Tony Fadell 37:58 W- I, I think th- the biggest one was, you know, just picking up and moving outside of, you know, the place where I had all my friends and all, my whole community, and all that stuff was leaving Silicon Valley. You know, just picking up after investing 24 years there and just picking up and leaving, right?

Harry Stebbings 38:17 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 38:18 Oh, the other one would be like, "Okay, I'm gonna just, I'm retiring and I don't know what I'm doing next," and that was after Apple.

Harry Stebbings 38:25 Hmm. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 38:26 Right? Or, or leaving Philips and, and saying, you know, and I had a little bit of money then, leaving Philips and said, "I'm gonna do a startup," you know, another startup. So it's always been, it's always been risk adjusted, right? It's, it, you know, the, the risks get bigger as you get, you know, as you, as you have more, more footing underneath you.

Harry Stebbings 38:46 Aligns to happiness and, uh, I have the best job ever. I get to ask, like, the smartest people in the world, like, about my problems. (laughs) Um, uh-

Tony Fadell 38:53 Yeah, yeah. Uh, the therapy is, is $1,000 an hour, my man.

Harry Stebbings 38:56 Oh, thank you so much. ASL-

Tony Fadell 38:58 And that's cheap. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 38:59 That makes, I mean, it's cheaper than my therapist, I tell you. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 39:03 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 39:03 Um, no, my question to you is like, also we mentioned, you know, family and marriage earlier, and then the stellar career. How do you not lose an inch on performance, but also have these great relationships with wife and kids? I'm terrified now, I've got a girlfriend. Man, it does detract from your ability to crush it 24 hours.

Tony Fadell 39:23 You have to remember that you can't crush it 24 hours a day or you're gonna crush yourself. You're gonna become socially unhealthy, mentally unhealthy, and you're gonna have no perspective on the outside world. You need to get out and not just be, you know, behind the filter of, "Oh, here's the blogs and the RSS feeds I read every day and R-" You gotta get out, and by getting out, you see other problems, and by traveling the world, you see other problems. You know, this is the, that's that whole chapter in the book, Fuck Massages, right? Companies make it so, some companies make it so coddled, that you get so coddled in companies that you, they never want you to leave. They just want you to work all the time. You get all your food there, your laundry done, whatever else. But you know what happens? It gets stale inside the company because those people never get outside. They only socialize with the people at the company. They only do everything at the company. They get uninteresting. I wanna go and sit there and have dinners with people in fashion and politics and media and, and learn about all these other pla- in different parts of the world so they can bring that back to me. And the only way you do that is by making sure you schedule it in, and, one, and two is, remember, you can delegate certain things. And because if you do everything and you're always on, the team, that's not healthy for the team either, and then they have no room to breathe. And therefore all of this just becomes, it just becomes so self-serving that

Tony Fadell 40:56 it becomes stale.

Harry Stebbings 40:57 Can I... I think we've got a little bit soft, Tony. I'm just gonna put it out there. This four-day work week, this whole, like, anti-hustle culture, the best people work fucking hard at-

Tony Fadell 41:08 I agree.

Harry Stebbings 41:09 ... points, at points in their career. And I get slammed on Twitter like, "Oh, you don't understand." Really? If you wanna be the best, fine, work hard. If you don't, fine. That's cool, you've chose-

Tony Fadell 41:19 And g- and maybe you can be the best. I'd love to see that. I've never seen anyone be successful with this, you know, with this, "Ah, let's say fair, whatever happens, I'm gonna be here." No, that's not how the world works because everybody's competing, and even more with the globalization. There are more teams, the globalization of technology, the globalization of, of problems to be solved in these teams and, and, and exporting it all around the world. Now you have the world competing around the same kinds of problems. And if you think tho- they're doing, you know, just taking three-day work weeks or whatever, like, they're gonna pass right by you. So you have to understand, you're gonna work intensely on the right things, and you're gonna work 60, eight, 60, 70 hours, maybe eight hours a week. But save the other time. Don't work 24/7 every day. But you have to bring your best, because if you don't, the rest of the team doesn't, okay? And this whole hybrid work week thing, and everyone's like, "I don't need to be in the office anymore," I think it's just a backlash to how leaders are trying to bring workers back into the office. It's exactly the wrong way. They're not even thinking about the human nature of it. There are better ways of bringing people back to work, but they're not communicating it. Just like, "You gotta come back." That is the wrong message.

Harry Stebbings 42:38 What is the right message?

Tony Fadell 42:40 The right message is, number one-... let, let's take from human nature. Let's start from human nature. Human nature is, people were trapped in their hamster routines, on their wheels, in their cages, in their mazes for months and years on end, okay? They got used to it. COVID happened and boom, it was time to press reset, and they were like, "Oh, I'm out of my cage. I'm out of this endless maze." Okay? "Oh, freedom! I can breathe again. I have, I have this." Because the maze or the hamster wheel was so shitty (laughs) that they didn't like it, all right, and then they have this. Some other people are like, "Oh, I wanna be back at work with people because that's... I love doing what I loved doing," because it's a mission. We're trying to get something done, and the best teams were the ones who had a mission, and the hybrid or virtual work environment came up and they kept moving, right? They didn't miss a beat, whereas everyone else is like, "Fuck, finally I can get out of there," and then those companies stumbled. What we have to remember is, we're trying to get people to go back into the cages. And you just don't go, "Go back in your cage because, or you're gonna be fired." That's what you're hearing, more or less what you're hearing out there. What you have to remember is making sure, was your culture wrong? Fix your culture. If your culture was right, remind them of that. Give them FOMO about not being in the office. Resell them why it's important, one, for their personal advancement, because we know and you know that if you don't have enough face time with the right people outside of Zoom meetings, you're most likely not gonna be the person who gets the promotion or that bonus or whatever. Two, in... especially now in a financial disaster that we have on our hands, who's gonna be the first one to get fired? The ones who don't come into work, or the ones who do come into work and have some face time and show value beyond just coming to a meeting?

Harry Stebbings 44:43 Is that not fearmongering? I'm with you, but is that not, "Hey, you can not come in, but..."

Tony Fadell 44:48 No, I'm not saying that they're gonna say that. What I'm saying is, is that you as the employee should understand this is the real world, and I don't believe in five day a week in the office all the time. I don't think that's... I think there's hybrid. But to think it's all virtual, wrong. M- it's wrong for the company, but it's also wrong for the individual if they look from their shoes, their standpoint, if they really understand how organizations work.

Harry Stebbings 45:16 Tony, you-

Tony Fadell 45:16 Okay, so, so it's as, it's incumbent as a leader, as a CEO, to remind people or fix the problems that were at work so it didn't feel like a hamster cage and a maze, and go, "Look at all these cool things," and you're

Tony Fadell 45:30 like, "Shit, I really wanna be at work today. I wanna be physically into work."

Harry Stebbings 45:34 Five years time, are we back in the office or are we hybrid?

Tony Fadell 45:36 We're gonna be hybrid. We're gonna be hybrid.

Harry Stebbings 45:38 Gonna be hybrid, okay.

Tony Fadell 45:39 We're gonna be hybrid. We're gonna be hybrid except for certain industries, certain service industries or something

Tony Fadell 45:44 where it can't be. You have to be on site, right?

Harry Stebbings 45:46 You m- you mentioned the financial downturn. There's a ton of investors and founders who've never experienced a downturn who are suddenly very, very insecure.

Tony Fadell 45:55 (laughs) Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 45:58 Um, but, uh, question, how would you advise them? You've seen multiple-

Tony Fadell 46:02 First, I've been, I've seen three. I've seen, I've been through three downturns.

Harry Stebbings 46:07 Have we-

Tony Fadell 46:07 One when I got out of college, one in 2000, another one in 2008, okay? And now I'm gonna go through my fourth.

Harry Stebbings 46:14 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 46:15 The... It's a pendulum, everyone out there. The pendulum swings from good times to bad times to good times to bad time. You have to remember this is a wave. This is not like life or death like with your, you as a human when I was born. Even as you as a human, you have ups and downs. You have a... the pendulum is swinging. What decade are you up and which decade are you down, and the biorhythms of your career. The same thing goes with the macro environments, the micro environments inside of industry. The pendulums are always swinging. So yeah, it sucks now. Guess what? You got in the upward swing for the last 14 years or whatever. Lucky you. Well, guess what? You're gonna have to wait for the next 14 years to get out to the, to s- wait for the next one. That's how it works. Welcome to the planet.

Harry Stebbings 47:00 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 47:01 All right? Get used to it and start understanding it ain't gonna be like it was, and you... by the time it starts to become like it was, you're gonna forget what it was like or you're gonna see it, like me, I was like, "Oh, I've seen this way too many times."

Harry Stebbings 47:15 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 47:15 "I'm gonna be scared while others are greedy, and now I'm greedy while others are scared."

Harry Stebbings 47:22 That's so sympathetic of you, Tony. Thank you. (laughs)

Tony Fadell 47:25 I, I just... Yeah, guess what, people? That's how it works. Get used to it now.

Harry Stebbings 47:30 Is that, is that the-

Tony Fadell 47:31 'Cause-

Harry Stebbings 47:31 Is that the type of parent you are? Like, are you the sympathetic-

Tony Fadell 47:34 Yeah. That's real... It's called reality. What do you want? Com- Like, "Oh, woe is you. Oh, the market's down. What am I gonna do for you?" Grow up.

Tony Fadell 47:45 Wake up. Come on, people. That's how it works.

Harry Stebbings 47:48 Okay. Are you worried that in a downturn climate and a commitment to climate becomes less priority?

Tony Fadell 47:55 A very, uh, very, very much so.

Harry Stebbings 47:58 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 47:58 And that's why I'm railing against the metaverse. I want these brilliant brains, these scarce brilliant brains and energy, and the leaders like we were talking about earlier. I care, I care about the, um... I care about all those, those, those, um, those people and where they're putting their time and energy because we only have 20 years, 30 years tops-

Harry Stebbings 48:23 Sure.

Tony Fadell 48:24 ... to get out and make this thing... and fix it. We have to do something now. We can't just wait till the end. This w- this is not, uh, the time to procrastinate. We've already done that. So my worry is like in 2008. Here's what happened in 2008, when we had Green Tech 1.0. Green Tech 1.0...... was, um, was, we were starting. Everyone was like, "Okay, we're gonna address this." Then 2008 happened, and the money dried up. And everyone's like, "Oh, my God, these climate change businesses are so hard. They take so much money. This is a downturn. We can't invest in it." And what do they do? They went after the social mobile thing. Ubers, the, all that stuff. And I'm not saying those aren't valuable, but the hot money chased all that, and they didn't chase climate.

Harry Stebbings 49:09 Yep.

Tony Fadell 49:10 And that's when, uh, y- I looked crazy. I'm like, I'm doing all these... Like, "What are you doing? Why are you bothering with this?" Blah, blah, blah. And now all of a sudden they're back. I hate to say it, I hate the war. I hate u- the Ukrainian war. It's a tragedy, but the dark gray clouds, the silver lining there, is that it has exposed these tyrants who hold, you know, hold us, uh, like puppets on a string with the oil and gas that we consume, right? And they're like, "Ha ha ha, we'll just play with them." Right? This shows us even more so that we need to have the will. We have the technology, we need to have the will to make these changes happen. So, what I don't want to have happen, even, uh, you know, and, and luckily we have a common em- enemy now, so even in a financial downturn, we all have to go and invest in the future. This is the future. There's actually more money to be made with green industries because it's easier and, and more cost-effective to actually do green materials and things like that.

Harry Stebbings 50:12 I just think-

Tony Fadell 50:13 It's actually better for business.

Harry Stebbings 50:14 ... I'm thinking of Goldman, I'm thinking of Fidelity, I'm thinking of JP who are going, "Fuck."

Tony Fadell 50:18 What about them?

Harry Stebbings 50:19 "Our numbers are getting fucked, and actually in the short term, we have to publish great numbers to shareholders. And an investment in the long term is more challenging in a depressed micro, macro environment. Shit."

Tony Fadell 50:33 Except when their customers are gonna say, "I need to have ESG related investments. I need, I want my money to go to those things." And more and more people are now voting that way. Right? So, of course they're going to be bankers, w- what have you, who are just looking for numbers and where's the growth and everything else. But the governments, especially in the EU as you know, are now going really hard after ESG. They're now, uh, subsidizing certain things. There's big industries being built like the battery, you know, manufacturing, battery recycling. These kinds of things are big money. And you know what, what's even better? Is once you build them, they are one of these blue ch- they will be a blue chip in 20 years, in 30 years because they're gonna be the new standard oils and, uh, you know, what have you. Right? JP Morgan, they were not bank. They didn't start as a bank, did they? They started in oil. So, so look, I, I, I want to just go back on the last... Um, it's not that I'm, I'm, I'm not empathetic to the situation that's going on in the social, in, in, in the, the, in the financial issues.

Harry Stebbings 51:38 Mm-hmm.

Tony Fadell 51:39 Look, I just don't want everyone to get all worried like, "Oh my God, you know, woe is me and it's never gonna be the same." That's just not how it is. Let's just be clear. The pendulum swings. Don't think it's the end. Of course it sucks. Nobody wants this. But that's how the world works, so you have to embrace it and find different ways of... and being resilient in the face of this. There are resiliency strategies. It can be worked out. Yeah, it sucks, but it's just not easy money like it used to be. So, don't always understand that it's gonna look like it used to be, or it's gonna go way, go back to the way it used to be. That's not how the world works. It's gonna be different the next swing. Okay? And it's your job, if you're always learning and staying on top of it, is to then go and find the next thing that matters and ride that up. It's not gonna be just seeing the numbers and chasing numbers. That's what too many of these day traders and other people think. That's not where the real, real value is. 'Cause when everything's up, it's great. But as we know, when the tide goes out, we see who's exposed, and there's so many people exposed because they bought, they were bought into this, "Oh, of course I can just sit on the beach and trade." That's not how it works. Not if you're gonna make real long term money and hold onto it.

Harry Stebbings 52:53 Tony, I want to move into a quick fire round. Uh, I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. I know we've got time constraints. Sound good?

Tony Fadell 52:59 Well, yes. Yeah, I, 'cause I have to go very soon.

Harry Stebbings 53:01 Okay, got you. Dream dinner guest, who would you have?

Tony Fadell 53:05 Dream dinner, dinner guest?

Harry Stebbings 53:07 Yeah.

Tony Fadell 53:09 (inhales) (exhales) I'm thinking some Nobel Prize winner. I can't tell you which one,

Tony Fadell 53:17 but I'm thinking it would be one or multiple Nobel Prize winners who I can learn from.

Harry Stebbings 53:21 Your house is on fire. Other than people, what do you save first?

Tony Fadell 53:27 What do I save first? I save all of my

Tony Fadell 53:32 long-term memorabilia that I've kept.

Harry Stebbings 53:35 (laughs) Why no caffeine, Tony?

Tony Fadell 53:39 Uh, because

Tony Fadell 53:41 you wouldn't like me on caffeine. (laughs) It's, I've already manic enough.

Harry Stebbings 53:45 What's the best purchase you've made recently under $500?

Tony Fadell 53:49 This.

Harry Stebbings 53:52 (laughs)

Tony Fadell 53:53 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 53:54 Tony, tell me, final one. In terms of Build, what would be the ideal outcome for you in terms of the next five years and how people view the book?

Tony Fadell 54:05 With Build, I care that people were either inspired to go build or it helped them in the things they are building to build them quicker, faster, better, stronger. Um, or it's helped, the book has helped people to find the, what they're doing, their mission, and help them to succeed personally, uh, in, in terms of getting their career off the ground and doing something important with a team doing something important. So, I- I just care about that it gets in there and it helps and becomes that mentor at a scale, um, so that, you know, there's so much noise in the world that this helps to kind of s- find the signal and what really matters. Because these building things is very hard, whether it's building yourself or, or a business, what have you. Trying to cut down all the noise and go, "Here's generally how it works. Go... These are good general rules of thumb that you should follow to help you so you can focus on the differentiation, the task at hand, as opposed to all these things that do matter." But there's so much noise and so many people trying to get out there and convince you, "Do this new thing." But it's all about human nature at the end of the day. New things and human nature don't usually, you know, they usually butt heads. (laughs) 'Cause humans are, we're all programmed the same way-

Harry Stebbings 55:26 Tony-

Tony Fadell 55:26 ... in many instances.

Harry Stebbings 55:27 ... I'm gonna wire you the $1000 for the therapy.

Tony Fadell 55:30 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 55:30 You are a hero. I so love our chats and thank you so much.

Tony Fadell 55:34 Harry, hey, thank you. Thanks, thanks, thanks again for all your support. Thanks to all your listeners and everything. Um, you know, Build is now a New York Times bestseller.

Harry Stebbings 55:43 Awesome.

Tony Fadell 55:43 And, uh, I can start to feel the, you know, the sales so that it's gonna help build the, the climate fund to, to address, uh, to, you know, you know, help these businesses addressing the climate crisis. So, uh, all these things are coming together. It's only been a month, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next five years looks like. Who knows?