Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell is the founder and CEO of Nest Labs, Inc., the company that developed the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect: Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm. Prior to Nest, Tony served as senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division, reporting to Steve Jobs. In 2001, after eight weeks of researching and designing the iPod product solution as a contractor, he was hired to create and lead the implementation team. He was responsible for creating the first 18 generations of the iPod digital music player and the first 3 generations of the iPhone. Before joining Apple, Tony was a cofounder, CTO, and director of engineering of the Mobile Computing group at Philips Electronics. He architected the award-winning Velo and Nino PDAs, based on the Windows CE Palm PC platform, and later became vice president of business development for Philips US Strategy and Ventures, managing its digital music strategy and investments. Earlier in his career, Tony was a hardware and software architect at General Magic, working with Sony, Philips, Matsushita, Toshiba, and other consumer electronics firms to develop a line of personal handheld communicators. Tony is currently an advisor to and investor in several Silicon Valley startups in the mobile-Internet and green-tech industries, helping them craft and implement their business, technical, and product strategies. In his 20+ years of experience in the consumer electronics industry, Tony has authored more than 300 patents. He graduated with a BS in computer engineering from the University of Michigan in 1991 and won the College of Engineering's alumnus of the year award in 2004. He was also included in _Vanity Fair’s_ 2013 and 2014 "New Establishment List" and in CNN’s 2013 list of "10 Thinkers." In 2014, he was named one of _Time_ magazine’s "100 Most Influential People in the World."