Sonos Executives Pay The Price For Company’s Shitty, Anti-Consumer Policies
You might remember that Sonos was the golden child of “smart,” internet-connected home hardware a decade or so ago. But that reputation has been steadily tarnished by a long line of bone-headed decisions, ranging from their 2020-era choice to brick still useful speakers and hardware, to their choice last year to release an app update that made their speakers more buggy and way less useful. That rushed and buggy app alone cost the company an estimated $20-30 million in value.
A company with the scale and ad dominance of Meta/Facebook can be a dysfunctional asshole for a long while before the check finally comes due. Less so for specialized hardware vendors like Sonos, whose product quality and consumer-friendliness was the entire reason for their success.
Sonos executives are starting to truly feel the heat of a miserable few years. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has been forced to step down, followed by the announced departure of Sonos Chief Product Officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin. Both took a long time to truly own their poor choices, initially going so far as to try and claim their sloppy updates and more hostile treatment of workers were a form of bravery.
New interim Sonos CEO Tom Conrad is trying to strike all the right notes in a letter to employees, letting them know the company heard their concerns about Sonos’ steady drift toward enshittification:
“I’ve heard from many of you about your own frustrations about how far we’ve drifted from our shared ideals. There’s a tremendous amount of work in front of us, including what I’m sure will be some very challenging moments, decisions, and trade-offs, but I’m energized by the passion I see all around me for doing right by our customers and getting back to the innovation that is at the heart of Sonos’ incredible history.”
That’s of course bean counter speak for looming layoffs and greater hostility to remote work. But you’d also hope that somewhere in there is a genuine realization that the company had drifted too far afield from the sort of quality, values, and product innovation that brought the company success in the first place.