Watt It Takes: Nest Co-Founder Matt Rogers

<p>This week on <em>Watt It Takes</em>: How a former Apple engineer applied design principles from the iPod and the iPad to smart thermostats — jolting an industry badly in need of change.</p><p>Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Matt Rogers, the co-founder and former chief product officer of Nest.</p><p>Nest is best known for its elegant learning thermostat, the first major breakout hit in the smart home space. Google later acquired the company for $3.2 billion.&nbsp;</p><p>In this interview, Rogers talks about his Apple influence, how he and co-founder Tony Fadell initially got obsessed with the connected home, and how Nest fit into the Google structure.&nbsp;</p><p>Before Nest launched, “the connected home wasn’t really a thing. It was a bunch of hackers stringing things together, there were no products to speak of, really,” says Rogers. “And I was like ‘this is a huge opportunity, we can go and make great products like we did at Apple.’”</p><p>This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, California.&nbsp;<a href="http://powerhouse.fund/events/" target="_blank">Buy tickets</a>&nbsp;for upcoming events.</p><p><em>Support for this podcast is brought to you by&nbsp;</em><a href="https://en.sungrowpower.com/" target="_blank"><em>Sungrow</em></a><em>. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.</em></p><p><em>Subscribe to&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/podcast/the-energy-gang" target="_blank">The Energy Gang</a><em>&nbsp;podcast via&nbsp;</em><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-energy-gang/id663379413?mt=2" target="_blank"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>,&nbsp;</em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0GT5BuD33AiPnqOzQE7YAE" target="_blank"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>,&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL3RoZS1lbmVyZ3ktZ2FuZw%3D%3D" target="_blank"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>,&nbsp;</e