Peering into the Future with Tony Fadell

On with Kara Swisher

Less screen time: it’s on everyone’s list of new year’s resolutions — or, at least, it’s on ours! Today, Kara and Nayeema discuss the addictiveness of tech and social media, before Kara dives into a conversation about the present and future of tech with a person who’s been around Silicon Valley for decades: engineer and designer Tony Fadell. The “father of the iPod,” as he’s known, helped bring the famous 5,000 songs to your pocket before helping design the iPhone, co-founding Nest ( selling it to Google for $3.2 billion) and writing the bestselling book, “Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making.” These days, he is bullish on climate tech and excited about the newest product he's designed: Stax, a crypto hard wallet.

Kara and Tony trade notes on Silicon Valley, including why Apple should think beyond four-wheel cars, why Google struggles to innovate (coddling employees is part of it) and how the next Fortune 500 companies will be the ones who help solve climate change. Oh, and they talk about the different types of assholes — and whether you need to be an one in order to build something great.

You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices