Tony Fadell, often referred to as “the father of the iPod,” is currently Principal @ Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology. Prior to Future Shape, Tony was the Founder & CEO @ Nest Labs, the company was ultimately acquired by Google for a reported $3.2Bn. Before Nest, Tony spent an incredible 9 years at Apple Inc, where, as SVP of Apple’s iPod division, he led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Fun facts, Tony has filed more than 300 patents for his work and is also a prolific angel investor having invested in the likes of mmhmm and Nothing to name a few. In Today’s Episode With Tony Fadell You Will Learn: I. The building blocks of an entrepreneur What was the moment that Tony realised that he wanted to be an entrepreneur? “I got my first money when I was in third grade, because I had an egg route. We'd go get eggs from the farmer, and I'd load them in my wagon. Then my younger brother and I would go door to door around the neighborhood, and we'd sell eggs. And that was an every week or every other week situation. And I got money in my hands. And I was like, Oh my God, I can do whatever I want with that money – I don't have to ask anybody, I can just do it. And so that was the level of freedom that, especially when you're young, feels really cool. And then as I got older, I started to buy Atari video game cartridges for my 2600 (yes, I'm that old!), and that was really, really fun too.” What was the biggest lesson that Tony learned from his father on sales and building trusted relationships? "And he said, very clearly, Look, this is a relationship. If I make this person successful, he's gonna want to come back to me over, and over, and over. But if I sell him something and it doesn't sell, and he has to discount and he loses money, he's not going to come back. Even if I don't have the right product, I'll tell him where to go to get the right product they're looking for, or if they're picking the wrong one, I'll tell them, here's the right one, because my job is to make them successful. Because if they're successful, they'll come back to me year after year after year. And even when we have a down year, they're going to trust me, and they're going to come back." II. Reflections on experience How does Tony Fadell think about and assess his own relationship to money? How has it changed over the years? "So my relationship to money now is that it's just a means to make change happen. And so literally, for me, I can just have a backpack, my computer, my phone, a couple of roller bags with my clothes. And that's enough to live life with my family. I don't need all this other stuff. COVID taught me that even further." How does Tony determine true friendships vs transactional relationships? “If it's not a reference – if it's not coming from somebody saying, Hey, you really need to meet this person – I take everything with a grain of salt. With anybody who comes to me cold, I think they probably want something. I try to find that out through the network, Do you know this person? What are they about?" III. Tony Fadell on becoming a mentor Why does Tony Fadell believe that founders have to be "coachable"? “I think anybody who's trying to do something that the world has never seen before, or trying to work with people who are, they'd better be coachable. Because you're going to be so narrowly focused, you're going to be so heads down, you're going to be so on a mission, that sometimes you'll be blinded, and you'll need somebody to come from left field and go, Wait a second, dude, you're not thinking about this right." What are the core signs that an individual is coachable? Trustworthiness 2. Willingness to listen What does Tony believe is the right way to deliver advice without fluff? "First, it's about trust. You have to be able to have a tru