Quotes from Tony Fadell

The truth is, homes change over time — and technology has to adapt, not try to do everything at once.

We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasnt time for endless refinements.

While I was designing my home, I was living in different houses all around the world, and I saw thermostats that were just as bad as the ones in the U.S., or houses that needed them but didn't have them. I realised that this was a worldwide problem. I thought, 'Let's fix it.'

Computers are great tools, but they need to be applied to the physical world.

Thermostats are made by very large companies with no incentive to innovate. Their customers are contractors or HVAC wholesalers, not consumers. So why spend to make them better? It's a good business.

I don't want the iPod to be my defining thing.

If you look at most successful startups, they're run by people in their mid to late forties, who've gone through the trenches multiple times and had multiple failures, so they understand.

It's not just about turning up or down the heat, it's about the other experiences that come with turning up or down the heat - what are we doing about energy, what are we doing about your health and safety.

Nest Thermostat owners like the carbon monoxide link. If Nest Protect's carbon monoxide alarm goes off, the Nest Thermostat automatically turns off the gas furnace.

I had been doing MP3 players and handheld computers since 1990-1991, and so they sought me out because of my experience. And about 18 generations of iPod and three generations of iPhone later, I decided to leave Apple.

There are two different types of prototyping. First, the gut sense. You know how far you can take it. Second, you need experts to figure out whether or not it is attainable.

Typical mergers happen when there are two competitors coming together, and they reduce overhead.

It wasn't until the Apple Macintosh that people understood what true hardware-software integration was about. It took one company to line it up: low-cost hardware, cool graphics, third-party products built on top of it, in an all-in-one attractive package that was accessible to consumer marketing.

You have to look at why people come and work at Nest. Part of it is that a lot of people here already know each other, but we're also on a mission with a purpose. People are personally motivated by energy or safety.

Nest really came out of a process where I was trying to design the most connected and the most green home that I knew of. I was curious of just about everything that goes into a home and building a home.

I knew there were all kinds of interesting things going on at Google, but now that I've seen them, my mind has been blown - in a great way. They have all these amazing projects and people that the world doesn't know anything about. I'm like a kid in a candy store - it's an idea factory.

If you look at where the tried and true of Silicon Valley VC's are investing, it's in people who understand what it takes, who've been through it and have a network of people they can tap and resources to pull together.

We work crazy hours in Silicon Valley; my wife says we're all kind of diseased in some way. We're totally obsessive compulsive - when we see an idea, we're like, 'let me in, it's so much fun.'

Well, you can say there is a self driving car. I'm seeing the automation of vehicles. Really, computer-assisted driving. I think that is really interesting to us because we are taking all of the sensors technologies and putting them in cars and making people safer.

Usually, the biggest companies are not the most dynamic.

I learned the power of 'no.' No is really important. Entrepreneurs are told to say 'yes, yes, more, more.'

You need to set near-term milestones. Put the assumptions down on paper, and make it to your vision or ultimate product. Your team has to understand where they're going. Your partners need to understand where they're going.

I have not seen a true grounds-up revolution from a bunch of companies getting together. It takes one company to put it together, then people draft off of that, but they don't build it top to bottom with a specific vision.

I've learnt something from every failure. The products I helped design at the first two companies I worked for were utter failures. But now I know why.