Nest has had its fair share of ups and downs since it was purchased by Google around two years ago. Recently, Nest was rumored to be going through a considerably tough time and was reportedly on “death watch” following a Reddit post from a proclaimed Nest engineer that talked about the toxic work environment and what was described as poor management. Just earlier today, whatever issues have been brewing at Nest (which likely includes failure to meet revenue goals) seemed to have culminated into the now former CEO Tony Fadell announcing his transition into a new chapter and his decision to leave the company. There is already a new CEO that is set to take his place, and his name is Marwan Fawaz.
Fawaz has fairly extensive knowledge in the cable and telecommunications industry and has served as CEO of Motorola Home in the past, a division of Motorola Mobility that was responsible for the cable boxes and modems that are or were used by cable companies. He has also served as Chief Technical Officer at companies such as Adelphia and Charter. Fawaz has already been named Nest’s new CEO but he also holds a board seat for Synacor and CSG International. Although it appears that it was Fadell’s decision to step down from his role at Nest, it’s clear that the company has felt there was a change that needed to be made, and that they see Fawaz as a way to help Nest through the transition and reach a new level of growth, as the company has recognized his “deep engineering and operational expertise” and they view his experience as being “extremely valuable” at this time.
Even with his expertise and engineering knowledge, Fawaz is likely to have some challenges ahead due to Nest’s current lack of new products, and revenues which had fallen short of company expectations. Any challenges that do come up, though, may be less severe as Nest is reported to have a product map laid out for the next couple of years. Following the announcement of his new role at Nest, it wasn’t made clear whether or not Marwan Fawaz would continue to keep his current board seats or whether he would be devoting all his future time to putting Nest back to where they need to be.