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Key leaders are leaving Google's smart thermostat Nest

Nest's troubles continue as it loses key leaders and an exodus of employees.
Written by Jake Smith, Contributor
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CNET

Nest, the smart thermostat company Alphabet-owned Google acquired for $3.2 billion, is seeing several senior executives leave the company.

Recode reports Shige Honjo, a veteran hardware chief, is leaving the company in May, along with senior engineer manager Scott Mullins who is moving to the Google Glass wearables team. Both report to Nest's vice president Matt Rogers, who is responsible for running the company day-to-day.

The shakeup in the ranks comes after a report last week Nest is under-performing and its future at Alphabet could be in jeopardy. Nest founder Tony Faddell revealed in an all hands-on meeting in November that roughly 70 out of 1,000 employees in about six to 12 months have left.

Recode reported Nest did $340 million in sales last year, but Google was hoping for more based on a prior sales agreement. It's believed the only reason Nest was able to hit such high sales was because it acquired Dropcam for $555 million and counted the security camera's hardware sales, as well.

To add to the turmoil within Google, the team at Dropcam is having a tough time integrating within Nest, according to The Information.

By losing key leaders and employees, Nest could have its operating budget from Google cut from the reported $500 million per year. It's not clear what new products are in the pipeline. To Nest's credit, the "Nest Cam" was released in mid-2015, borrowing tech from its Dropcam acquisition, and the Nest thermostat saw a small update.

Hands-on with the Nest learning thermostat

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