Der ehemalige Apple-Mitarbeiter und Designer Tony Fadell des iPod über den Deal mit Google:
Om Malik: Tony, it seemed like you were on a great trajectory and were looking to build a standalone company, so what changed and led to the decision to sell?
Tony Fadell: We had been hoping to build an independent company. There were plenty of people who offered money but Google offered a great middle ground — we focus on product and vision and they will help build out the company and help scale it.
OM: Can you elaborate?
TF: I was spending nearly ninety percent of my time on building the infrastructure of the company and I wasn’t able to spend enough time and cycles on what I love doing: products and creating differentiated experiences for our customers. That is where my love is and Google offered to let us focus on that, but with scale that will help bring our horizon closer to us, faster. Google offers to bring that scale to us. For me, ultimately building great products is key.
OM: Explain to me what Google brings to the table, in terms of scale and bringing the horizon closer?
TF: When as a company you want to change the world, you have to look at markets outside of the US. We are doing very well in the US and Canada but we need to get to Europe and around the globe. Just getting to UK has taken up a lot of time and energy and when you look at Europe, there are many countries and many opportunities. It is an atoms-based business and a lot goes into getting it to scale — legal, physical distribution and even localization are time consuming and need new kind of scale.