Releasing the 2004 Sonos Prototype Would Have Killed the Company
John MacFarlane · Sonos: John MacFarlane · Feb 19, 2024 · at 29:48
John MacFarlane, co-founder of Sonos, discusses delaying the company's planned late-2004 product launch due to wireless latency and range issues.
0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 8.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“In retrospect, it wouldn't have made any difference, and we would have killed the company had we released The quality of product it was at that time.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from John MacFarlane
Steve Jobs Pounded MacFarlane's Chest, Threatening to Sue Sonos Out of Existence
“He walked right up to me and pounded on my chest and said they were gonna sue us out of existence for having a scroll ring on our remote.”
Startups Only Compete Against a Tech Giant's Specific Division
“You're not really competing against the whole company. You're competing against the section that's making a competitive product.”
Legacy Hardware Incumbents Assigned B and C Teams to Home Audio
“So the traditional audio market that you're mentioning, we didn't really view them at all in the same way. Mindset is us. While they did fill the home with music, they just, you know, it was usually the B or C team TVs were much more popular, home theater rece…”
Apple Has Brand Permission to Dominate Home Audio but Deprioritizes It
“I think Apple of all those brands has the brand permission to do a great home music experience, but they've got so many other things to do. They haven't really done that.”
TiVo Failed by Refusing to Choose Between a Product or Service Model
“TiVo was a great company, but never decided, was it a product? Was it a service? Which is it? Is it both? And as the idea becomes mainstream, you've really got to do that and dive deeply. And the companies that survive do that well, and the companies that don'…”
Major 1990s Software Giants Refused Internet Sales Over Channel Conflict Fears
“The folks that kind of were the gatekeepers at the big software companies at that time, Microsoft, Borland, Lotus Weren't interested in selling their software over the internet. They were more worried about hurting their sales through the conventional channels…”