Father of iPod Moving to the Clean Tech Sector Now

April 21st, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

Tony Fadell, who was formerly senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division, is the latest Silicon Valley IT expert to make a shift to clean tech.

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A leading executive behind the iPod and iPhone, Fadell stepped down from his senior vice president role in November 2008 but stayed on with Apple as special advisor to CEO Steve Jobs until recently. Now, rumor is, he is moving into the fast-growing clean tech sector to focus on producing consumer-focused green technology.

In his first, and apparently only post on Twitter, Fadell wrote, “It was my last day at Apple. Thanks to Steve and the team for an amazing and unforgettable 9 years helping to change the world. All the best,” on March 30th.

“My primary focus will be helping the environment by working with consumer green-tech companies,” told the NYTimes by phone. “I’m determined to tell my kids and grandkids amazing stories beyond my iPod and iPhone ones.”

Other notable IT executives who have shifted to clean tech in recent years include SAP executive Shai Agassi, who founded the electric car company Better Place; and co-founder of PayPal Elon Musk, who is Chairman, Product Architect and CEO of another major electric car company, Tesla Motors. Ever heard of them?

Bill Gates, arguably the father of the IT revolution is also shifting focus a bit and is a leading clean tech investor now.

It will be interesting to see where innovative tech guru Fadell lands or what he starts up to help make our world a little cleaner. Danny Bradbury of Business Green writes, “while the energy and transport sectors have attracted billions in low-carbon investment in recent years, the consumer electronics market in which he specialises is yet to see as much innovation designed to cut carbon emissions and environmental impacts.” Hopefully, Fadell can come in and help that to happen.

Image Credit: Zengame via flickr/CC license

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Tags: Apple, better place, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Fadell, iPhone, ipod, it, PayPal, SAP, shai agassi, Tesla, Tony Fadell

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

David

John, that quotation might be referring to the same things you are. One big goal of clean tech is to make the most efficient products more acceptable to mainstream folks and get it in everyone’s living room. While there has been a lot of innovation, it hasn’t yet hit the masses in many sectors, and there still is plenty of innovation to come. What needs to be done is lower costs of the most efficient products. We need look no further than regular appliances to see that most folks don’t buy efficient products… sure it is much better than 10 years ago, but we need people to keep pushing the envelope.
Andrew

Brilliant! Give me hope. Hopefully many will follow.
John

Not sure what to make of this quote:

“the consumer electronics market in which he specialises is yet to see as much innovation designed to cut carbon emissions and environmental impacts”

Every year, electronics manufacturers are bringing out products that can do more using less power. Ever since Intel killed the Pentium 4, they’ve been trying to reduce the power consumption of their chips while increasing performance. Performance/watt is a major consideration, particularly for mobile and server applications. If automobiles had the same gains in performance/power as computers over the past 20 years, global warming would have been solved by now.

Heck, let’s look at the iPod — the original was a hard drive based device, that was almost certainly more energy efficient than the cassette tape walkmans that it replaced. And today’s iPods are all flash based, meaning no moving parts at all, meaning even less power consumption.

TVs and computer monitors are transitioning to LED backlighting, which saves power.

There are tons of examples of increased energy efficiency in the electronics industry. The more I think about it, the more that quote makes no sense at all.
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I can’t wait to see consumer focused green technology innovations made by the father of the ipod. Definitely a venture to follow ! Thanks for posting this Zachary