Nest is not the best place to work



    Nest is one of the most promising start-ups of recent years, but apparently, in the framework of this project, after the takeover of Google for $ 3.2 billion in 2014, things are not going as smoothly as we would like. At an open meeting between Google employees and company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page or Sundar Pichai, one of them asked executives an unusual question about why many Nest employees were offered to work seven days a week for months.

    Nest co-founder Matt Rogers said it was “normal practice to launch new devices.” But such an answer offended many employees.

    “He did not admit that this is bad practice and did not take responsibility for it. Ultimately, when you ask employees to work on the weekend, it's the management’s fault, not theirs, ”  one of Google’s former employees told Business Insider.


    Three former Nest employees likewise ridiculed the startup’s internal corporate culture because of the ever-breaking deadlines. And this, in turn, was due to unrealistic deadlines for the completion of the project. As it became known thanks to other Nest employees that Business Insider reporters spoke to, a startup has great potential for a revolution in the smart home market, but it suffers from constant layoffs and disorganization.

    The latter is also affected by direct management. Most employees characterize Tony Fadell as the second Steve Jobs. Because of the brutal treatment of employees, inside Nest there is an atmosphere of constant fear, and many approvals only delay the release of a new product. On the Glassdoor website, Tony Fadell has a rating of just over 60%, which only confirms this information. This atmosphere is not conducive to the retention of employees who too often leave Nest.

    Despite the small number of manufactured products - a smart thermostat, a smart smoke detector and a camera, which began to be sold after the absorptionDropcam for $ 555 million in 2014, each of them has serious problems. For example, thermostat users complain about unexpected temperature changes in the morning or during another period of time.

    And recently, users of the Nest camera faced an unexpected disconnection of the service, which is unacceptable if the service is used to track children. And this is only one of the three “falls” of the service for working with the camera in a year.

    All this led to extremely low profits in the Alphabet report. According to official information, Nest, Google Fiber, and Verily’s division made a total profit of $ 448 million, and analysts hoped that Nest could overcome this mark alone.

    In any case, Nest has enormous potential, which is yet to be realized in the near future. But the Google division will have to grow much faster due to the entry of competitors such as Apple's HomeKit.

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