Losing Tony Fadell: The man who made the iPod
Big news for Apple in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal: The company is losing one of its stars, Tony Fadell.
Tony who?
If Steve Jobs didn't loom so large in Apple's public persona — drawing the spotlight at every appearance — a lot fewer people would be asking that today.
Fadell was — and until he leaves at an as-yet undisclosed time for "personal reasons," still is — the top engineer in a company renown for its engineering prowess. At Business 2.0, the now-defunct Time Inc. monthly, we ranked him No. 27 on our 2007 list of "50 Who Matter Now" in the world of business.
And when Fortune tried earlier this year to handicap who might be best equipped to replace Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO, Fadell came in No. 2, after COO Tim Cook. Here's how we described him then:
Tony Fadell
Title: Senior vice president, iPod division
With his American swagger and his hair bleached white, Fadell stood out at button-down Philips Electronics, where he led an in-house pirate operation designing Windows CE-based devices. It was there that he came up with the idea of marrying a Napster-like music store with a hard drive-based MP3 player. He shopped the concept around the Valley before Apple's Jon Rubinstein snapped it up and put Fadell in charge of the engineering team that built the first iPod. Ambitious and charismatic (and no longer a bleached blond), he now runs the hardware division that makes two of Apple's three key product lines: the iPod and the iPhone. (link)
Fadell will reportedly be replaced by Mark Papermaster, the top IBM executive who managed the company's blade server business. IBM (IBM) sued Papermaster last week over a noncompete clause in his contract to try to prevent him from joining Apple (AAPL). See here.
In a press release issued Tuesday morning, Apple announced that Papermaster had been named senior vice president of devices hardware engineering, reporting directly to Steve Jobs.
According to the release, Fadell and his wife Danielle Lambert, a VP of human resources, "are reducing their roles within the company as they devote more time to their young family. Fadell will remain at Apple as an advisor to the CEO. Lambert will depart the company at the end of this year after a successor is in place."
Chafic is so wright, and o yeah while your economy is crumbling we are enjoying your money flowing into our bank coz they are 100 times for stable.
Chafic are you 8 march or 14 march?
Robert T is a typical American guy. So stupid and selfish. Do you truely believe that your Nation is so "Great"? Most of you guys are racist, which is a huge sin. Also, most of you are dumb, and barely make it to High School, let alone College. It's really funny how the majority of your work force is NOT American. Also, about the "Fady come to AMERICAN universities for their education", how about Carlos Ghosn? He is the current CEO and President of Renault of France and Nissan of Japan. In addition, he is also on the board of Alcoa, Sony, and IBM. Figures, he completed his secondary school studies in Beirut, Lebanon. He was the one that brought Nissan out of their misery, they were on the brink of bankruptcy. His turnaround of Nissan has gained him celebrity status in Japan, where he has published books and even has a manga character based on him. So please, get your facts straight, rather than embarassing yourself.
By the way, the media have donje a great job in creating a false imgae of arab countries, here in lebanon thier are no koran universities, maybe a few very little, but 95% of the universities are not religion realted, and as for school depends on what school you go to, half are christian schools and half or muslims, but they all teach the same stuff, the only diffrence is in religion class, most schools have religion class once a week, and in my evangalical school, i repeat evangilical school, we have 20 minutes of chapel a day, and just for your info christ does many mircales in lkebanon very year, so much so that two years ago, over 2 million people came from all around the world to see the miracles that have happened, and see the places where they have happened, do your homework buddy beofre you start talking, more chrisstians here then you think.
Well Robert T, I'am waiting for your reply. oh ya tony chalhoub the main actor in MONK just so happens to be Lebanese.
I hate racist, and yes I do agree Lebanon is a great nation, might be going threw though days, It's not a muslim nation, mentioned a'lot in the bible thats true. America isn't the best country out thier, us maericans have out problems too. stop thinking we are better then everyone out thier. plus all the religious stuff or most of them happened in that region of the world. we arent better then anyone and no one is better then us.
A- Iám an evangalical.
B- Think before you talk.
wow if lebanon didn't exist how would the world be today. Ok so first of lebanese created the alaphabet yup the alaphabet, imagine the world without the alphabet, ok so apperntly we also created transperent glass, and the mathematical phythagoras guy was raised in lebanon. Now to famous singers, mika is lebanse of origin and shakira too. ok also lots of lebanse americans were sentaors in the us congress. oh ya Ralph Nader is lebanse. and the guy who created the heart pump is leabnese. we also had people in the NBA, Ford Motors former ceo was lebanese. swatch watched were created by a lebanse. the same guy who created swatch was also behind the concept of the smart car.and finally john mack the ceo of the board at morgan stanley apperntly the largest investment back in the world, was born in lebanese and i think most probably he also is a lebanse.
and by the way, 30% of lebanese are christians and lebanon is mentioned in the bible a'lot of times.
Robert T., I am responding to your post because this site allowed you to ask a public question.
There are hundreds of universities in the Arab world with millions of students and about 0.00003% of those do go and study in the USA. Take it easy with these 0.00003% who chose to study in your country because they are the rare 0.00003% who thought that your country is worth visiting.
I am a Lebanese Christian who accepts Koran schools because they allow me to also accept Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhism and, of course, you.
"yup he is from the great country of lebanon", OMG please….what a dolt. First you need to capitalize Lebanon. Tony was born in the United States so he is an American first. Funny how so many "bright" Arabs as you put it Fady come to AMERICAN universities for their education. I guess those Koran schools just can't get beyond the basics eh? So Fady, what "great stuff" have you invented lately?
I have an internet application that is bigger than YouTube and iPod put together and only Tony Fadell can take my product to the market. I like the way he conducts business especially putting people together and transforming ideas into success.
Kelly Nasr
CEO-OneHelp.ca
just wantes to tell you all that tony fadell is a lebanese american, yup he is from the great country of lebanon, in other words the creator of the ipod is lebanese, yes an arab. funny how some people call us terrorist yet we keep doing great stuff around the world, i mean inventing great stuff.
Turn your I Touch and/or I Phone into a cool looking hearing aid device. As the population gets older there will certainly be a need. I need a hearing aid but hate the way they look and can't afford the tremendous cost. A cool looking I phone which can serve also as hearing aid could be a big hit with many many folks of all ages who need a modern looking multipurpose hearing device. No one makes one! Be the first!! I'll buy one if the price is in line with the current I Phone/Touch!!
With all due respect, Mr. Fadell was NOT a top engineer … he was a ruthless taskmaster with little understanding of either the marketing and electopolitics required to make the iPod a success (that was Steve Jobs and the Apple marketing staff) nor the design needed to make it a consumer lust object (that was Jonathan Ive and a gaggle of Apple engineers and programmers). Tony was good at getting a product out the door … a valuable talent, but certainly NOT a replacement for Mr. Jobs.
ex ped: Michael Johas Teener is currently a Technical Director / Plumbing Architect at Broadcom designing advanced networking systems. For most of 2004 and early 2005 he was an independent consulting engineer doing business as PlumbLinks, and before that he was Plumbing Architect at Apple, a title that he also held from 1988 until 1996. Between his two stints at Apple he was Chief Technology Officer of Zayante, Inc., a FireWire technology provider he co-founded in 1996 and was acquired by Apple in 2002. He was the chief architect of Apple Computer’s Firewire technology, and was a major contributor to much of the technology now consolidated under the 1394 standards. See here.
I offered Phil that I would proof read his work before posting so he'd not have to make an a$$ of himself everytime, but he hasn't taken me up on it. I'm glad he didn't since I already have a full time job.
Talking about ranking, at Business 2.0, the now-defunct Time Inc. monthly, Phil ranked top of the list for most typos and grammatical errors.
Who cares? Realistically, one man did not create the ipod himself. Kudos to the team not recognized for their contributions!
Yeah, Phil. You should realize that your story's validity is automatically eliminated in the event of a small and inconsequential typo. Good call Frank.
Why dont people on CNN and Fortune know how to spell. It is crazy how bad the typos are.
"best equipped replace Steve Jobs as"
Speak much?
The good news is that he is not leaving to go somewhere else. He is leaving because he made his money and now wants to spend time with his family. So he will stay on at Apple as an advisor and consultant..
Here's a picture of tony with his old hair style.
ex ped: Not quite. He wore it cropped short.
Many times when a senior development talent leaves it is because a luminary hogs the spotlight. Even those of us who are in the product development game and know what it takes to bring a concept to volume production tend to think of Steve Jobs as the "father of the I-xxx products." And it probably probably makes more sense to the stock price to keep that simplistic notion in place.
But the downside is that a person who made it happen is now going to make it happen elsewhere — and get some of the spotlight. No slight against what Jobs has done for Apple from the beginning (and lately) but kudos to Tony.
tony is a selfish low down idiot he messed it all up