Google Nest Exodus Continues

An anonymous employee of Nest shares about the worst working conditions at Nest.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google Nest has been in the limelight since quite some time now where two major employees have bid farewell to the company which highlights the chances of an exodus. The tech giant made the acquisition of Nest in 2014 for an amount of $3.2 billion but the company has not monitored much growth since then.

The working conditions are extremely tough and the company also lacks innovation in terms of product developments has ignited employee dissatisfaction under the leadership of Mr. Tony Fadell. The Chief Executive Officer of the company was initially associated to Apple Inc. as the design head for the iPods. The issue with him is that he demands perfection in the products which is a good thing. However, he constantly demands changes in the prototypes which burdens the engineers.

A user on Reddit whose chose to be anonymous on the sub-Reddit /r/Nest talked about how difficult it is to work in Nest due to its present working conditions. As per the engineer, the venture is experiencing a “deathwatch” where revenues and profits are heating up. As per the user, “throwawaynest,” has revenue worth $340 million but its budget is $500 million. So since its acquisition, the company has not come up with any new products and the sales digits are a miss.

News has been circulating in the industry where engineers are willing to switch as soon as their budget deals get over. The company is not providing them the monetary incentives to motivate them to work any further. On the other hand a few aren’t bothered about their withheld money and have already quitted.

The user referred to the CEO and his teammates as “Tony and his goons” who have prescribed deadlines that are unrealistic. Even if engineers come up with good products, the executives then intervene and completely change the course for the product. Right after the change, Mr. Fadell and his mates reprimand the engineers for not getting the specifications correct and label them as incompetent.

As per the engineers, he/she has to be a part of meetings that are absurd and then he has to defend them. The work environment is actually bad where workers overcome their sleeps in corners and cry in washrooms. This has also has an impact on their family life and health. The news regarding the company’s working conditions have spread far and wide which has forced Nest to recruit below par talent to compensate for the employees they’ve lost. It is quite clear that good engineers are not willing to work at Nest whatsoever.

As per the user, the only way Nest has succeeded in making some revenue is via the acquisition of Dropcam. The post was ended with a conclusion that “Now off to the other 4 meetings I have today.”

At this point the search engine giant needs to take charge, if things continue the way they are then Mr. Fadell would also be jobless in the times to come. Alphabet has plans to sell Boston Dynamics (its robotics arm) out since it was not useful for them. They might just repeat this with Nest if required.