Tony Fadell, founder of Build Collective and Nest, critiques the ballooning multi-billion-dollar valuation rounds in the artificial intelligence startup ecosystem.
“Well that doesn't work from a venture perspective. Like with those kinds of, you'd never get the venture returns. You can't invest in things. When the valuations are already nine digits or 10 digits, and you think you're gonna, a small portfolio that's got like that's not the kind of game I want to play.”
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More from Tony Fadell
Opinion
Fadell: Google sidelined Nest due to cultural and business mismatches
“The whole organization was a stepchild for whatever reason, you know, there was cultural mismatch. There was, you know, probably a business mismatch.”
Tony FadellJun 7, 2026▶ 18:47Tony Fadell: How to build real taste (and why AI makes it matter more)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Jobs told iPhone touchscreen dissenters to get on board or leave
“And guess who wins at the end of the day? Steve jobs, opinion. And he was like, if you're not going to get on board, get out of this room and you can go work on another project, but you're not going to work on this.”
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“When you're doing a one point O of anything, When you're doing, if you're doing anything that matters, and it's a one point on, it's a new category, or it's a new device the world hasn't seen before. You have very few analogs that you can use to make data driv…”
Tony FadellJun 7, 2026▶ 8:43Tony Fadell: How to build real taste (and why AI makes it matter more)
Insight
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“Because if you try to do data-driven decisions all the way along, You're either not doing a differentiated product because you're taking data from another thing, or you're just getting just bullshit data, right?”
Tony FadellJun 7, 2026▶ 9:23Tony Fadell: How to build real taste (and why AI makes it matter more)
Opinion
Fadell: The market timing is perfect for a 'Nest 2.0' hardware startup
“Oh, for sure. For sure. People keep asking me, what are we going to get? It's like, no, absolutely. It's now's the, I now's the time. If it isn't already happening, I'm actually getting business plans of people who are like, Hey, you know, is this interesting?…”
Tony FadellJun 7, 2026▶ 19:51Tony Fadell: How to build real taste (and why AI makes it matter more)
What-if
Fadell: Without iPod, there would be no iPhone and Apple likely would have failed
“And that's how iPhone was able to be created because without the iPod there, I'm pretty sure there would have been no iPhone. There would have probably been no Apple because it was close to bankruptcy.”
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