Sonos
11 statements across 3 episodes · 5 bullish · 1 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement Jan 21, 2019 by Harry Stebbings · said 56 times in 10 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (39), Patrick Spence (4), Kevin Thau (3), Reggie Marable (2), Josh Udashkin (2), Bret Taylor (2), Mike Volpi (1), Clay Bavor (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 2 mentions in 1 episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2021 38 mentions in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 3 mentions in 1 episode
2017 4 mentions in 1 episode
2016 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Why Great VCs Know The Opportunity In Hardware, Physical Stores Will Not Disappear and The Importance of Consumer Brand with Josh Udashkin @ Raden
- 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
Everything said about Sonos, oldest first
Jan 21, 2019 positive
Feb 26, 2021
Feb 26, 2021 bullish
Spence: Sonos rejected making $29 speakers to compete with Amazon and Google
“My experience from RIM led me to believe, no, that's exactly what we shouldn't do. We're not going to respond in that way. We're going to build on what we do, which is an open platform. And we're going to take the most useful part of those products, which is t…”
Feb 26, 2021
Spence: Diversity initiatives fail unless directly driven by the CEO
“I think the real issue is in those cases, they've often siloized it or given it as a responsibility to somebody else. When I think this is something that is about talent and about culture and something that the CEO really needs to own and drive.”
Feb 26, 2021
Sonos delayed a key holiday product launch by two quarters over design
“Right when I came into Sotos, in fact, we made a decision, which I think speaks a lot to our culture, which was to push a product, which we really needed from a company perspective, needed out in kind of the holiday quarter. We pushed it out. I think two quart…”
Feb 26, 2021 negative
Feb 26, 2021 positive
Spence: Authentic, vulnerable leadership yields greater results with less mental overhead
“And I've realized there is way more power as a leader in being vulnerable and just being who you are and leading in that way. And it comes with a lot less mental overhead too, in terms of being able to show up like just as yourself.”
Feb 26, 2021
Spence: Hardware development requires two years and heavy upfront debate
“It's even harder in hardware because you really don't want that many hardware programs that are not going to work. Right. Because it's a two year journey. You've got to get a lot of the details sorted out upfront and a lot of debate has to happen at that point…”
Feb 26, 2021 positive
Founder John MacFarlane left Sonos' board completely when Spence became CEO
“John McFarland stepped away completely. So unlike most founders and CEOs and large shareholders that maybe go onto the board or become executive chairman or something like that, John said, no, I've seen how this works and goes badly at many companies.”
Feb 26, 2021
Jul 4, 2026 positive
Sierra built its initial platform embedded inside Weight Watchers, Sonos, and SiriusXM
“We then enlisted half a dozen design partners that we built the first version of our product and platform with and for. And these are, in the history of the company, legendary, legendary companies. Olokai, great flip-flops, you should buy them. SiriusXM, Sonos…”