This is a book review of Build by Tony Fadell, one of the nine books that I read last month. This book was recommended to me by Craig Larman one of the key proponents of Lean-based product management systemic techniques. And it certainly did not disappoint.
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making - Tony Fadell https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/B09CF2YB6Z/
I love books where I can help walk (sort of) in other people’s shoes - at least to the extent that they care to share their stories. Tony was instrumental and building and growing the iPod and if you are looking to learn about innovation, value creation, design, and product management all in action, this book will teach you a ton of ideas that one could steal from it. Whether you would succeed with those ideas, is a different question?
It is interesting to note how Tony did it all over again with Nest. After getting bored with the incremental growth iterations of the iPod (which was deliberately eclipsed by the iPhone), he left Apple to start Nest. And how one takes a market problem that one is passionate to solve and gets some traction and answers to solve it in a way that it was built into a brand new segment that did not exist before.
I have followed Tony and the several reports on his handling of employees at Nest and it was great to get a different perspective from his side than what was received in the news. The merger of Nest with Google initially as a division of Alphabet and subsequently change of integration with the Google products teams and the consequent culture dynamics of two different types of organizations that had completely varying philosophies have interesting learnings from it. It did end with Tony Fadell leaving Nest/Google.
I continue to follow Tony and his journeys and follow his future endeavors. Several of the patterns, stories, and ideas are worth stealing and using in my coaching and teaching.