Nest CEO defends company at Google meeting after recent controversies

Following a number of recent controversies surrounding smart-home accessory maker Nest, Recode reports that CEO Tony Fadell defended the company while addressing the reports at a recent Google meeting.

First acquired by Google, Nest is now under Alphabet, the same parent company as Google following a restructuring last year.

At the weekly Google meeting, Fadell reportedly addressed recent reports of troubles on the Nest team that followed comments from Dropcam’s former CEO Greg Duffy regarding Fadell’s brash management style. Those comments led to a public response from Fadell and a number of mainstream media outlets picking up the story, while a report last week from Recode added that the company was under-performing financially and that its future at Google could be in jeopardy.

Here’s an excerpt from Fadell’s talk with Googlers addressing the reports:

Hi, everybody. I don’t normally come to TGIF, but I thought today was a very important day to come. First and foremost, you know, the articles that you see and read about either me or about Nest — they are incredibly disheartening because we don’t believe — and I don’t believe specifically — that those articles represent our culture, represent our work ethic, represent the respect we have for each other inside the team. And so it’s really — it really hurts us a lot when see those things.

Of course, we’re not perfect. No company is. Nest isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. No one’s perfect. But we know what our problems are. We have been addressing them over the last two years. And, frankly, we have more room to go.

And the Nest CEO also addressed claims of troubles among employees or with Fadell’s management style, saying  “I do respect the Nest employees. I do respect the Google employees. I respect the Alphabet employees. We try to work very hard together and partner in many different areas around the different companies. I also respect ex-Nesters, ex-Googlers, those kind of things.”

Fadell added that the company has “not had any slowdown” in growth and that this quarter it expects to beat its estimates. We’ll find out for sure when Alphabet reports its first quarter results next week.

You can read a full transcript of Fadell’s talk at the weekly Google meeting at Recode.