Tony Fadell

“Every person I talk to has a story about how their smoke alarm went off or woke them up with a battery beeping. So you take it off the wall and you take the battery out and say 'screw this.' They hate the products.”

“To help you focus, to help you really understand what you're doing, you have to say no a lot. When you say yes to everything, you get distracted. When you say no, you have to get the one thing you're doing really right.”

“I used to work about 100 hours a week; now it's about 70. But 40 hours? Forget about it. Either you're all in, or your not.”

“I learned the power of 'no.' No is really important. Entrepreneurs are told to say 'yes, yes, more, more.'”

“While I was designing my home, I was living in different houses all around the world, and I saw thermostats that were just as bad as the ones in the U.S., or houses that needed them but didn't have them. I realised that this was a worldwide problem. I thought, 'Let's fix it.'”

“I have not seen a true grounds-up revolution from a bunch of companies getting together. It takes one company to put it together, then people draft off of that, but they don't build it top to bottom with a specific vision.”

“No amount of data will tell you if a feature should be in the product, because it doesn't exist. You need to have a very clear leader with a clear point of view... otherwise, you get a mishmash of features and stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense.”

“We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasn't time for endless refinements.”

“In Tahoe, you want to be able check on the temperature of the house or turn it on before you get there. Because it's really cold in the winter.”

“Nest really came out of a process where I was trying to design the most connected and the most green home that I knew of. I was curious of just about everything that goes into a home and building a home.”

“Most thermostats are built by plumbing companies. But you really need to understand how to build a phone to make them better.”

“Nest Thermostat owners like the carbon monoxide link. If Nest Protect's carbon monoxide alarm goes off, the Nest Thermostat automatically turns off the gas furnace.”

“I started designing the greenest the most connected home before the iPhone and the iPad.”

“You start with the right amount of rational and emotional experiences. You have to blend those in your product when you come out.”

“People buy products, and they want to understand what those things are and how they are applicable to their life.”

“You have to look at why people come and work at Nest. Part of it is that a lot of people here already know each other, but we're also on a mission with a purpose. People are personally motivated by energy or safety.”

“With most tech guys, it's the same outfit every day - they wear their company logo.”

“At the end of the day, customer choice is essential. And we don't make products that compete with Apple, nor make products that compete with Google. Our customers come in both iOS and Android flavors, and I hope our customers can still buy the products they want to purchase wherever they want to purchase them.”

“I knew there were all kinds of interesting things going on at Google, but now that I've seen them, my mind has been blown - in a great way. They have all these amazing projects and people that the world doesn't know anything about. I'm like a kid in a candy store - it's an idea factory.”

“I don't look backwards. I'm pleasantly surprised, and I feel really proud of the team and what we were able to accomplish together. But really, where I'm focused is the future and where Nest is going.”