Categories: Digital Transformation | Entrepreneurship & SME | Innovation, Change & Creativity | Technology
Tony Fadell is a highly regarded inventor and entrepreneur, recognized worldwide as the father of the iPod and the first 3 iPhones, as well as being the founder of Nest Labs, a pioneer in the Internet of Things.
Tony Fadell is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives with over 300 patents under his wing. He is an inventor of the iPod and iPhone, and founder and former CEO of Nest Labs, Inc., the company that pioneered the “Internet of things” and created The Nest Learning Thermostat.
Prior to Nest, Tony Fadell served as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division, reporting to Steve Jobs. He was responsible for creating the first 18 generations of the iPod digital music player and the first three generations of the iPhone. In 2001, after eight weeks of researching and designing the iPod product solution as a contractor, he was hired to create and lead the implementation team.
Before joining Apple, Tony Fadell was a co-founder, CTO, and director of engineering of the mobile computing group at Philips Electronics. He architected the award-winning Velo and Nino PDAs, based on the Windows CE Palm PC platform, and later became vice president of business development for Philips US Strategy and Ventures, managing its digital music strategy and investments.
Earlier in his career, Tony Fadell was a hardware and software architect at General Magic working with Sony, Philips, Matsushita, Toshiba, and other consumer electronics firms to develop a line of personal handheld communicators.
Tony Fadell is the Principal at Future Shape, an investment and advisory firm coaching deep tech startups. Currently, Future Shape is coaching over 250+ startups innovating game-changing technologies.
Tony Fadell graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan in 1991 and won the College of Engineering's alumnus of the year award in 2004.
