Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

School has not prepared you to be successful for the rest of your life. Adulthood is your opportunity to screw up continually until you learn how to screw up a little bit less.

The best way to find a job you’ll love and a career that will eventually make you successful is to follow what you’re naturally interested in, then take risks when choosing where to work. Follow your curiosity rather than a business school playbook about how to make money. Assume that for much of your twenties your choices will not work out and the companies you join or start will likely fail. Early adulthood is about watching your dreams go up in flames and learning as much as you can from the ashes. Do, fail, learn. The rest will follow.

“The only failure in your twenties is inaction. The rest is trial and error.” —ANONYMOUS I needed to learn. And the best way to do that was to surround myself with people who knew exactly how hard it was to make something great—who had the scars to prove it. And if it turned out to be the wrong move, well, making a mistake is the best way to not make that mistake again. Do, fail, learn. The critical thing is to have a goal. To strive for something big and hard and important to you. Then every step you take toward that goal, even if it’s a stumble, moves you forward.

You should never kill yourself for your job, and no job should ever expect that of you. But if you want to prove yourself, to learn as much as you can and do as much as you can, you need to put in the time. Stay late. Come in early. Work over the weekend and holidays sometimes. Don’t expect a vacation every couple of months. Let the scales tip a little on your work/life balance—let your passion for what you’re building drive you.)

If you’re going to throw your time, energy, and youth at a company, try to join one that’s not just making a better mousetrap. Find a business that’s starting a revolution. A company that’s likely to make a substantial change in the status quo has the following characteristics: It’s creating a product or service that’s wholly new or combines existing technology in a novel way that the competition can’t make or even understand. This product solves a problem—a real pain point—that a lot of customers experience daily. There should be an existing large market. The novel technology can deliver on the company vision—not just within the product but also the infrastructure, platforms, and systems that support it. Leadership is not dogmatic about what the solution looks like and is willing to adapt to their customers’ needs. It’s thinking about a problem or a customer need in a way you’ve never heard before, but which makes perfect sense once you hear it.

Just whatever you do, don’t become a “management consultant” at a behemoth like McKinsey or Bain or one of the other eight consultancies that dominate the industry. They all have thousands upon thousands of employees and work almost exclusively with Fortune 5000 companies. These corporations, typically led by tentative, risk-averse CEOs, call in the management consultants to do a massive audit, find the flaws, and present leadership with a new plan that will magically “fix” everything. What a fairy tale—don’t get me started.

To do great things, to really learn, you can’t shout suggestions from the rooftop then move on while someone else does the work. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to care about every step, lovingly craft every detail. You have to be there when it falls apart so you can put it back together. You have to actually do the job. You have to love the job.

Too many people see work as a means to an end, as a way to make enough money to stop working. But getting a job is your opportunity to make a dent in the world. To put your focus and energy and your precious, precious time toward something meaningful.

The key is persistence and being helpful. Not just asking for something, but offering something. You always have something to offer if you’re curious and engaged. You can always trade and barter good ideas; you can always be kind and find a way to help.

Becoming a manager is a discipline. Management is a learned skill, not a talent. You’re not born with it. You’ll need to learn a whole slew of new communication skills and educate yourself with websites, podcasts, books, classes, or help from mentors and other experienced managers.

A star individual contributor (IC) is incredibly valuable. Valuable enough that many companies will pay them just as much as they’d pay a manager. A truly great IC will be a leader in their chosen function and also become an informal cultural leader, someone who people across the company will seek out for advice and mentorship.

One of the hardest parts of management is letting go. Not doing the work yourself. You have to temper your fear that becoming more hands-off will cause the product to suffer or the project to fail. You have to trust your team—give them breathing room to be creative and opportunities to shine.

Your team amplifies your mood, so when I was frustrated, those feelings rocketed around the office and came back tenfold. The more upset I got with our lack of progress, the more those frustrations infected the rest of the team. So I had to learn to modulate myself. To crank my personal style down a couple of notches to establish an effective management style.

Kwon Oh-hyun, the former CEO of Samsung Semiconductor and an incredible partner, big brother, and sometimes mentor to me as we worked together closely on the iPod, once put it this way: “Most managers are afraid that the people who work for them are going to be better than them. But you need to think of being a manager more like being a mentor or a parent. What loving parent wants their child NOT to succeed? You want your kids to be more successful than you, right?”

The customer is always right, right? Except customer panels can’t design for shit. People just can’t articulate what they want clearly enough to definitely point in one direction or another, especially if they’re considering something completely new that they’ve never used before. Customers will always be more comfortable with what exists already, even if it’s terrible.

We made decisions. I made decisions. This is in. This is out. This is how it’s going to work. Not everyone on the team agreed with me. That’ll happen sometimes when one person has to make the final call. In those moments it’s your responsibility as a manager or a leader to explain that this isn’t a democracy, that this is an opinion-driven decision and you’re not going to reach the right choice by consensus. But this also isn’t a dictatorship. You can’t give orders without explaining yourself.

That’s why some managers and execs and shareholders demand data even when there is none and then chase that imaginary data directly into the abyss. These are the kinds of people who won’t question their directions and drive their car right off a cliff. If at all possible they want to erase the human element—human judgment—from the equation. These are also the people who will call in the big-league, very expensive (and in my opinion worthless) consultants at the drop of a hat. They’ll happily second-guess your decision, then rip it right out of your hands and pass it to people who have no context or understanding of your product, company, or culture.

And I want to make it very clear: hating your job is never worth the money. I need to repeat that: hating your job is never worth whatever raise, title, or perks they throw at you to stay. I know that may ring hollow coming from me, a lucky, wealthy person. But the way I’ve gotten wealthy is not by accepting giant paychecks or titles to do jobs I know I’ll hate. I follow my curiosity and my passion. Always. And that’s meant leaving money on the table—so much money that people thought I might actually be crazy. “Look at what you are walking away from—leading iPhone, leaving Apple? And all that money? What’s wrong with you?”

And they might sue you. If they can’t innovate, they litigate. The good news is that a lawsuit means you’ve officially arrived.

But as every carmaker in the world followed their lead, Tesla was in danger of becoming just one more electric car in a market flooded by them. So they started electrifying different kinds of vehicles and innovating charging networks and retail and service, batteries and supply chains. They’re ensuring that the competition has to fully disrupt every part of their operations to even enter the race. Once every carmaker has an electric vehicle, then the customer will focus on all these other aspects that Tesla has already disrupted and brought to market.

It seemed perfectly sensible. We nodded in approval at the consultants. Great! We have a real schedule! We might actually pull this off! Until we realized that: Nobody can accurately estimate their time or all the steps they’ll need to perform. Trying to get into that much detail that far out is useless. Something will always spoil your plan. We were spending all our time scheduling, arguing over what could and couldn’t be done in a half day, and it was impossible to see the whole forest through the half trees.

You make the product. You fix the product. You build the business. Every product. Every company. Every time.

Seed crystals are people who are so good and so well loved that they can almost single-handedly build large parts of your org. Typically they’re experienced leaders, either managers of large teams or super-ICs who everyone listens to. Once they’re in, a tidal wave of other awesome people will typically follow.

Vacations are a great way to build a team’s future capabilities and see who might step into your shoes in the years to come. Everyone thinks they can do your job better—until they actually have to do it and deliver. So even if you’re in a high-stress job, you need to take vacations. They’re important for your team.

There will be no break unless you force yourself to take one. So do all the stuff they tell you to do before bed: no caffeine, no sugar, keep it cold, keep it dark, and for the love of all that’s holy, keep your phone away from your bed. You’re an addict. We all are. So don’t make it too easy for yourself—charge your phone in another room. Don’t be the alcoholic with a whiskey bottle in their nightstand (I wish I could say I do this every day, but hey—I’m human, too).

That was the system we had at Nest. We called it the Three Crowns. Here’s how it worked: Crown 1 was the hiring manager. They got the role approved and found the candidates. Crowns 2 and 3 were managers of the candidate’s internal customers. They picked one or two people from their team to interview the candidate. Feedback was collected, shared, and discussed, then the Three Crowns met to decide who to hire. Matt or I would watch over it all and make the final call in the rare instance when the Crowns couldn’t agree. Typically the answer if we had to get involved was no, thank you: PASS.

You can’t wait for the perfect A+ candidate to appear for every single empty slot. You need to hire. The best of the best don’t always want to join a big team, or they’re tied up in another job, or you can’t afford them or give them the titles or responsibilities they want.

In the early days of a company, when most people are self-managing, the absolute maximum number of people one human being can effectively manage directly is 8–15 full-time employees. As the company grows, that number shrinks to around 7–8.

Coaches are there to help with the business. It’s all about the work: this company, this job, this moment in time. Mentors are more personal. They don’t just help with people’s jobs, they help with their lives, their families. A coach helps because they know the company; a mentor helps because they know you. The best is a combination of the two—someone who understands both worlds—a mentor/coach who can help people see the bigger picture about what the business may need as well as what they need personally.

A good product manager will do a little of everything and a great deal of all this: Spec out what the product should do and the road map for where it will go over time. Determine and maintain the messaging matrix. Work with engineering to get the product built according to spec. Work with design to make it intuitive and attractive to the target customer. Work with marketing to help them understand the technical nuances in order to develop effective creative to communicate the messaging. Present the product to management and get feedback from the execs. Work with sales and finance to make sure this product has a market and can eventually make money. Work with customer support to write necessary instructions, help manage problems, and take in customer requests and complaints. Work with PR to address public perceptions, write the mock press release, and often act as a spokesperson.

This is why product managers are the hardest people to hire and train. It’s why the great ones are so valuable and so beloved. Because they have to understand it all, make sense of it. And they do it alone. They’re one of the most important teams at a company and one of the smallest.

Rather than focusing on rewarding salespeople immediately after a transaction, vest the commission over time so your sales team is incentivized to not only bring in new customers, but also work with existing customers to ensure they’re happy and stay happy. Build a culture based on relationships rather than transactions.

Here’s how to set it up at your company: 1. If you’re starting a new sales organization, do not offer traditional monthly cash commissions. It’s best to have everyone in your company compensated in the same way—so offer salespeople a competitive salary and sales performance bonuses of additional stock options that vest over time. Stock provides a built-in incentive to stick around and invest in long-term customers who are good for the business. 2. If you’re trying to transition to a relationship-driven culture, you may not be able to kill traditional commissions right away. In that case, any stock or cash (stock is still preferable) that you give as a commission should vest over time. Pay 10–15 percent of the commission at first, then another tranche in a few months, then another a few months after that, etc. If the customer leaves, the salesperson loses the remainder of their commission. 3. Every sale should be a team sale. So if you have a customer success team (the team that actually delivers, sets up, and maintains whatever is sold to the customer), then it should sign off on every deal. Sales and customer success should be under one leader, in the same silo, being compensated in the same way. In this setup, sales can’t just throw a customer over the fence and never think about them again. If there’s no customer success team, then sales should work very closely with customer support, operations, or manufacturing—create a board of people to approve each commitment.

And this isn’t to say sales is not important. It’s vital. It brings in customers and cash that are absolutely necessary to keep a company alive. But it’s not more important than engineering or marketing or ops or legal or any other part of your business. It’s just one of many critical teams, all working together to make something great. But if sales is off to the side, doing their own thing, barely part of the company but steadily meeting their monthly goals, that can breed an insulated, transactional culture. And the way customers are treated in that kind of culture can be brutal—even in places where you’d assume customers must be treated well in order for salespeople to make any money.

You’d call up to the Nest Protect in the kitchen that dinner was ready and the smoke alarm in your kid’s bedroom would carry your voice. Now add a video camera or a smart lock into the mix and you’ve got a built-in security system with sensors in every room and alarms throughout the house. With every new Nest you’d install, your old Nest products would get better. Do more things. Open new avenues of convenience and possibility. And it would require very little from you. It would all just . . . work. The whole point of the connected home was for it to be effortless. For your house to take care of you rather than you taking care of it.

If you want to build a great company, you should expect excellence from every part of it. The output of every team can make or break the customer experience, so they should all be a priority. [See also: Chapter 3.1: Making the Intangible Tangible.] There can’t be any functions that you dismiss as secondary—where you casually accept mediocrity because it doesn’t really matter. Everything matters. And it’s not just about you. If your expectations are that everyone puts out their best work, if you’re looking at customer support articles that will be posted on your website with the same critical eye as engineering or design, then the technical writers of those articles will feel the pressure, will bitch and moan, will get stressed out, and then they will write the most incredible support articles of their lives.

Most people are happy with 90 percent good. Most leaders will take pity on their teams and just let it slide. But going from 90 to 95 percent is halfway to perfect. Getting the last part of the journey right is the only way to reach your destination. So you push. Yourself. The team. You push people to discover how great they can be. You push until they start pushing back. In these moments, always err on the side of almost-too-much. Keep pushing until you find out if what you’re asking for is actually impossible or just a whole lot of work. Get to the point of pain so you start to see when the pain is becoming real. That’s when you back down and find a new middle ground. It’s not easy. But all that attention, that care, the quest for perfection—they’ll raise the team’s own standards. What they expect of themselves. After a while, they’ll work incredibly hard not just to make you happy, but because they know how much pride they feel when they do world-class work. The entire culture will evolve to expect excellence from each other. So your job is to care.

Great leaders can recognize good ideas even if those ideas didn’t come out of their own mouths. They know that good ideas are everywhere. They’re in everyone. Sometimes people forget that. They firmly believe that if they didn’t think of it, it’s not worth thinking about. That sort of egoism can also extend way beyond individuals—many CEOs get so wrapped up in their own companies that they dismiss the competition. If it wasn’t invented here, it can’t possibly be any good.

Delaying hard decisions, hoping problems will resolve themselves, or keeping pleasant but incompetent people on the team might make you feel better. It may give you the illusion of niceness. But it chips away at the company, bit by bit, and erodes the team’s respect for you.

Bill Campbell helped me understand how he did it. Bill would always say that if there was any potentially surprising or controversial topic, the CEO should go to every board member, one-on-one, to walk them through it before the meeting. That allowed them to ask questions, offer different perspectives, and then the CEO had time to take those thoughts back to the team and revise their thinking, presentation, and plan. There should only be good surprises in a board meeting—We’ve exceeded our numbers! We’re ahead of schedule! Check out this cool demo! Everything else should be a known quantity. It’s best not to debate new discussion items in the boardroom—there’s just never enough time to cover them in detail and get to a resolution. It always goes nowhere.

Then again, any board seat comes with some level of cachet. It’s good for the ego. Good for the pocketbook. But you never want that to be your main draw. Avoid celebrity board members, people who sit on a dozen or more boards or people who are only looking to get seats to pad their résumé. It’s all too easy for them to check out. To become bored or indifferent. Or to put their interests above your company’s.

Free will screw you every time. Getting a really great deal on something creates a completely different mindset than expecting to get it for nothing. Subsidizing perks rather than giving them away is obviously much better financially for your business, too. Companies that bubble-wrap their employees with tons of free perks are usually shortsighted and have no long-term strategy to sustain those perks, or they have an innately problematic core business and the perks are the cover. Facebook famously takes great care of its employees, but it also makes all its money selling customer data to advertisers. If Facebook changed its business model, their profitability would take an enormous hit and all those perks would disappear.