Watt it Takes: Nest Co-Founder Matt Rogers

Aug 2, 2019

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1:05

Matt Rogers

Nest

Nest is best known for its elegant learning thermostat, the first major breakout hit in the smart home space. Google later acquired the company for $3.2 billion.

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In this episode of Watt It Takes, we speak with Nest Co-Founder Matt Rogers, a former Apple engineer who applied design principles from the iPod and the iPad to smart thermostats — jolting an industry badly in need of change.

Matt started at Apple, building the software team for 10 generations of the iPod, was one of the first engineers on the original iPhone, and was involved in the development of 5 iPhone generations and the first iPad. As co-founder of Nest, Matt built the team that created the first machine learning thermostat and the leading connected home brand. Now, as Co-Founder of Incite.org, Matt looks for the first-movers that will cause positive, catalytic change in the venture capital, non-profit and political space.

“Were there moments where you thought that Nest would fail?”
“Many. Many, many moments. Like probably dozens of moments. And it’s funny how it can be perceived as an overnight success. But internally, there were moments of failure on a weekly basis.”