This is the most overlooked aspect of this acquisition.

My brother works in HVAC, and I've seen some of the automation available - - the trouble is that the systems aren't intuitive to the user and do very little to think on their own outside of if statements from the sensors.

I would have much rather seen this as a technology/algorithm hire from a company like Honeywell or some other established HVAC company, which could have kept selling the Nest (and their new smoke detector, etc.) but also incorporated the technology into higher-tech commercial/industrial systems, where you some companies could probably save millions a year through more intelligent control and management systems.

Honestly, HVAC is a fantastic industry with plenty of room for innovation. This being said, there's far more accurate automation in industrial applications than around the home. A good example of this work is within airports and casinos. The new Vancouver Convention Centre is something worth reading up on too.

For technically-inclined individuals, understanding how water, air and gas move is the ticket to a proper disruption. This goes beyond the bandaid fix of a good, intuitive thermostat, and into the circulation of fresh air and overall design of the home.

I will say though, that smoke detector is awesome. Here's hoping that Google doesn't just shut down the good work that's been done.

On the contrary, get ready for the Google Home Security System!

Complete with hidden NSA silent remote deactivation codes.

"Steve is out of the house" shared publicly on google plus.

Ha. Robbers can already see if I'm out of the house by my instagram feed.

Not mine. I'd never use instagram - but now I can't buy a Nest thermostat, which I used to want.

I never found my Nest to be all that intelligent beyond "I wonder if he'll notice it's colder now?" "Oh wait, he turned me up, I guess he noticed." It's a game of cat and mouse with that darn auto-away enabled sometimes.

I find the learning functionality to be a nuisance. What makes it awesome is the design, the remote control, and the scheduling interface.

I figured as much. Just seems like a big fuss over a whole lot of nothing though if that's all it is. And 3.2 billion for that? Why couldn't Google just make their own that does exactly the same thing? I think its trendiness is all people really care about.

If it helps, as Verge commenters reminded me, it's 3.2 Instagrams, 0.8 Snapchats or 0.4 Skypes. :D

High end commercial/industrial HVAC systems already have automation that far outperforms anything Nest offers. Google up "honeywell comfortpoint".

I'm wondering if you expect him to design (Android) phones, where his talent would indeed be able to scale and justify the price — or do you see Google hiring him to lead a domotic division, and his price is based on Nest gorgeous, but not as-iconic products (yet)? Or is my distinction irrelevant in 2014, the year of wrist-servers?

As I understand it the way an aqui-hire works is that the buyer pays enough to buy off the liquidity preferences of the investors with little left over for the founders. But the founders, along with the much of the rest of the staff, gets jobs and golden handcuffs with the acquirer -- which puts their total compensation a few years out somewhere between a 'real' exit and what they would have gotten if they had gone to work for the acquirer in the first place.

In this case, there were only a few investment rounds, all of which were reported to be big 'up' rounds, and the (huge) deal was reported to be all cash. All of which suggests that at least the co-founders, and probably at least several others, are going to be very very rich on day one working at Google. Which in turn is not a circumstance very conducive to effective golden handcuffs.

IMHO, if he wanted to work on new phones for large corporation he'd probably stay at Apple and not created his own company (getting full financial independence along the way). Of course 4 years have passed, maybe he's ready for some new experience.

Maybe he's ready for a billion dollars.

Yeah, I can't imagine this is too much more than an acqui-hire. The co-founder of Nest built the first iPod. Why wouldn't Google want him? Skipping over the whole "Google+ everywhere" argument, there's really not much data they can merge into my already-too-extensive G+ profile from my thermostat, other than I don't like being cold in the winter or hot in the summer to the tune of 70 degrees.

I understand that POV, but one would think that for $3.2B Google could have reinvented Nest ten times over. What's so unique (and protectable) about Nest that would make it worth what Google paid? Is their IP so broad and deep? Is there some fast-closing window most of us don't see? I'm boggled.

>>but one would think that for $3.2B Google could have reinvented Nest ten times over.

Google is a very big company. I think they are already 50,000 employees in strength. A company so big is not very good at this 'inventing' stuff. There are likely a few engineering oasis somewhere in Google, but the bulk of the company is your ordinary mid level managers, controlling people at grass roots. Their likely goal is to cripple innovation with full force to prevent engineers from looking smart. Add all kinds of pointless bureaucracy.

Spending $3.2B in such ventures in such set ups only leads to a heavily delayed project. Clueless MBA's turned project/product managers enforcing their brain dead ideas in technology areas. Other managers venturing into gold digging, lazy people being elevated as abstract thought leaders etc.

Its best to just to buy something from outside and give them autonomy.

well said. Autonomous small engineering units are the paradigm of current and past inventing. Skunk works, phantom works, etc. All of the MBA's combined with their fancy powerpoint presentations don't amount to 2 solid engineers with a whiteboard.

Could not agree more.