YouSaid · the spoken record

Bracken Darrell

lines on the record: 80
first: 2021-12-21
most recent: 2021-12-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You know, I do think there will be a lot of people sitting in headsets doing work that we think of as productivity work today or playing games in much the same way we do on a PC today. But as far as I can tell, based on all the work we do, and we've had five or six years of working on VR and AR, I haven't found any better input tool than the mouse and the keyboard yet for that. So I think they're going to do very well in that space.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely both directions. I mean, there will always be hardware good at that. Hardware is hard as hell, mainly because the logistics and supply chain of hardware is hard. And then services connected to that hardware is absolutely going to be part of our future. We're super excited about that. Streamlabs has been amazing. And it's been really amazing. I've learned more from Streamlabs than any other business probably here since I got here. And I'm so impressed by the team that we have running at George, who just, you know, every time I talk to my IQ goes up about 10 points, which puts me about 40 so far in the streaming creating. It's really fun and really, yeah, we'll be in both. We're going to do both.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If we were even thinking about that, it would be top secret. If it even crossed our minds, we wouldn't mention it. We're absolutely going to do more stuff in that space. We love the space. The definition of the purpose of the company, which is often kind of an eye roll for people, but it's not for us, is to enable all people to fulfill their passions. And creators who are doing stuff digitally online, most of them are super passionate about it. And we have people who are super passionate about it. So we're creating things all the time for those people. And we're doing so many things also in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. I'm super excited about that are directly connected to that. We've done so much there. It's just so, so exciting, you know. And there's, as you said very eloquently, this is like the most exciting thing happening in the world during the pandemic. It was already exciting and it just exploded. This genie's not going back anywhere near the bottle. It's all over the place.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have four big business areas video collaboration, billion dollar business, the core mouse and keyword business way over a billion dollar business, gaming, way over a billion dollar business. And the fourth one is that business. We call it streamers and creators. And today it's a much smaller business than that, but it's growing very fast. And I absolutely believe it can be bigger than the other three.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you look at some of the trends that have radically accelerated over the past year, the one that comes to mind that's real is the creator economy, right? We've just seen More and more people are building media businesses at home, building direct consumer businesses at home. Do you see that as a market that you can actually provide services to?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was talking to John Mada, who's a great designer, and I was asking, what's the difference between designing a product, like a hardware product and designing an app or a software, a service experience? He said, oh, well, they're as different as can be. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, like designing a product like designing a chair and like a chair is like the standard for design. He said, and designing an app or a service is like designing an entire college campus. I thought it's really true and so dynamic and so fast. But the other difference is you can change the college campus all the time. So it's so exciting and fun. So I think in the future, we're going to be very”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never stop being a hardware company. We were born a hardware company and we'll stay a hardware company. So we're going to create more and more great things and we'll enter new hardware categories. So we're doing that. The services component is very, very small for us today. You mentioned Streamlabs. That's a super exciting business and it's growing fast. It's very cool and we're expanding it in different directions. We're also creating new services across a lot of our business today. And those will grow. And so it'll be more and more significant. So I think we're going to be a hardware and services company. And the services are going to be a very small part of our business for a while, but they'll grow and they'll eventually grow. They'll grow faster than the business and they'll grow faster. And eventually they'll be meaningful. And people will say, ah, they really did mean it when they said they were going to get the services. And we do. And we really do. And I'm really excited about it. It's super fun. It's so interesting. I'll close on this, you know, design, design. I think you like design. I like design. It's so interesting.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's end kind of where we started in 2019. You said Logitech was going to become a software and services company, a cloud accessories, cloud peripherals company. Obviously the last year plus you refocus the business in a lot of ways. We're making adorable keyboards. I don't think there's a cloud component to the keyboards yet. We'll see. What's the future? What's next for Streamlabs? What's next for the connected services? Is that still where you're headed or has this period of refocusing changed any of that plan?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Always see products come through secondary markets like that, but I didn't use products that come on the market, et cetera. And we occasionally have a frustrating period where we have to deal with that and it kind of hurts, destroys the pricing in another channel that really the integrity of the price. But generally speaking, I think it's being managed pretty well. It's a fairly orderly market. It's competitive, but it's orderly. We're managing it better today than we've ever managed in the history of the company. And I think we've learned by making so many mistakes. There were our mistakes usually.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was just looking for my, I bought the C920 webcam. It was definitely Chinese when I bought it from Markup on eBay. I did it partially just to see what would happen But like that channel's full now, you're selling more, I'm assuming, online. That an impact? Did you see like okay, we're at a product, the channel is filling on eBay and wherever else and every other way it can. And we've got it pushed back against that”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, ramped up when we were short because people were so desperate they were looking, they just wanted to buy, you know, then the logic of place they couldn't find it where they normally buy is to go to us. So we sold a lot. So it did change materially, but it didn't become 50% of our business anymore.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a sales channel, but it's very small, it will grow. But I'm not, you know, our primary business is not to sell direct. I like direct selling because it gives you a relationship of customers and you can understand things better, what you should be doing. But I don't envision us becoming like some of the other companies where 50% of our sales go through our own channel.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We need to be better at managing the whole chain. First, we have to have a G502 that's better. It's known to be better. And it is. And that product in particular is. That's the best-selling mouse in the world. And so there will be other things that are going to pop up, including other companies like those. And we still have to win by creating something that's better, getting reputation, getting those 4.75 stars or four and a half stars. And then we've got to really, really good at working within the Amazon ecosystem. We have to have really good capability. We've built that over the last few years. We're very good there now. And they help us be very good. And other companies have too. We need to be unparalleled or unbeatable in terms of being able to go to market online, just like we were offline. And we're almost there now. We're not going to let up.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really interesting because when the company started, we were an OEM manufacturer for HP, Apple, Dell, and we were still an OEM manufacturer until about five years ago when we exited. And at that point, it's about 10% of our business. And so we kind of went the full range. But because we were an OEM manufacturer, we also had our own products and we sold at retail right next to the same products we were competing with. So we had to have something better because those were in the box and ours weren't. And so we tended to innovate better or innovate, add more features and build in more power for the dollar. And then we innovated a lot. And so we've just kept doing that. And so I view that as wonderful. You know, if you've got people who are reacting to you, I'm so proud what somebody says, you know, somebody knocked off your product. And somewhere, I'm like, really? You're right. They did. In a way, I feel good about that. Now, if they did it and they took something that we owned and they shouldn't, then we should act appropriately. But I don't do that.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's always been true that there were proprietary peripherals that came with the primary devices. It puts pressure on us to deliver better experience and better products and know the customer even better. And the only advantage we have in that is that we don't exist if we don't do it better than the thing that's in the box. And so it puts so much pressure on us to innovate well. And you and I now know each other well enough that you can tell I love that. I would much rather be in that spot than one where than a commodity business where I just got to be on the peg and I'll sell or have more pegs than somebody else. I really want to innovate better than other people. And so the pressure's on us and I like that. I'll take it.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You think that as broadly to the entire industry, not just Apple, but one thing that we've seen is more and more phone vendors have to compete with AirPods, right? If you buy a Pixel phone, the best headphones to buy are the Pixel Buds. If you buy a Samsung phone, the best headphones to buy are Samsung's headphones, and that the ecosystem is kind of getting wider into proprietary lanes, right? It's not just Apple, it's one of every company. Do you see that as something that you have to manage against, that you have to push back against, or there are categories where that just isn't happening?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll speculate a little bit though. I really think their rulebook on this is more about we must deliver an amazing experience for our users because that's what they expect. That's what we want to deliver. And so we're going to occasionally let somebody in that walled garden as long as they can deliver that experience. If they can't, then they're not in. And there are probably companies that could that won't get in because they haven't proven it yet or there's only so many that could be that could support that. But I really respect that. I think that's a tough standard. And it's made us better certainly made us better, much better”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, we do use their connectors, so I've got one sitting in front of you right now that does use the smart connector from Apple. So they have opened that to us from time to time. I can't speak for Apple at all. And they're very secretive and they don't share secrets with me.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Business, you know, so it's hard for me to be anything but excited about the future, and I do see things getting simpler and more, not more complex, but simpler. And whether it's those veins and arteries or the products themselves. Anyway, I'm excited about what's coming.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wearing airpods, and I'm really impressed by how they made something that the differences are small, but they're so meaningful. I love that because I just think, you know, gosh, it's amazing if you can remove steps for a process, how valuable that is. Simplification by removing steps is maybe the most valuable simplification there is. And I think nobody's done that better than Apple from what I can see in the tech world. I mean, it's just a magnificent. As part of that, they're actually pretty good about opening up. You know, people talk about the closed system of Apple, but they're also open in many other ways. I mean, the App Store is one of the most open systems there is, you know, and they also open up and let you physically connect into their devices. As long as you deliver the quality of experience that they expect for their users, you can do it. So I think the standards are high, but that's good. And as long as you deliver against those standards, you have a pretty good shot of being able to be part of that. And I think most of the big companies in tech are that way in some way, shape, or form. So obviously I love this.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But so, like, for something like Bluetooth, for example, right, Apple has its own proprietary extensions to Bluetooth that enable features on its headphones You could just never do basically. No one can do them. As you think about, okay, here's our business. This is the veins and arteries of the business's connection standards. The platforms are integrating more and more features and doing more and more proprietary extensions. How do you think about that threat? How do you model that out?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Computers It is confusing, but USBC is cool. And I do like that they seem to all be moving in that direction, which is helpful for us, you know, because if they can get to what everybody can get to one standard, then we can, it's more efficient for us, most importantly, it's just easier for users. You don't want everybody to be trying to figure out like I was a few minutes ago trying to find something to plug into something. I was running around the floor out here. Nobody's hearing. I look at people just trying to scavenging the CEO.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That just a cost you bear because the big companies have decided we're all going to use one connector or is it are you in a position to say hey we actually are the ones that plug to your computers our customers are confused”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no, we're very in there, especially in matter. You know, we're super interested in it. We've got a team that looks at that all the time. And it's just really important that we understand where the standards are going, where Bluetooth's going, where Bluetooth's low energy is going, what's included, who's getting on it. This is kind of the arteries and veins of our business. We really have to know what's in there and we have to be able to play. And, you know, we have great people who look at that all the time for us now, but it's kind of guess where to go next. And we're not always right, but you have time to correct.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We got to get better working with Apple kind of opens the door to a number of questions. But kind of importantly, Most of your products right now connect to a computer or some other system through a standard, right? Mice and keyboards, webcams, that's all USB. There's a USB standards body Standard spot is bad at naming things, but it exists in the USB standard, continues to operate. Sure. You have a lot of Bluetooth products, Bluetooth similarly.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But think of in things you learn from that. You learn how to manage a cloud service, you learn how to work with Apple, you learn how to work with Amazon and Alexa. And those are capabilities that are super valuable as you enter new things. Most of what we do is actually just tries to make the experience of one of those big platform players better. So these are super valuable experiences to have. And it also gives us experience with software engineering and services. And those are valuable, as you said, from the beginning of the call. I'm always in a learning mode. And I love these categories for that reason. There's a lot to learn. There's a lot of stuff happening in the home. I think the home's kind of still a mess, you know? At least mine is.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A doorbell is like a really interesting product, you mount it on the wall, you never really think about it unless it breaks. But the cost structure for you is. Well, you got to run a cloud service. There's got to be some app developer thinking about the doorbell app on two different platforms at least.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're in a lot of categories, and you mentioned a couple of them that are in the home, they're relatively small for us. We stay in them because we think it's a lot easier to learn your way around if you live somewhere than looking in from the outside. So we stay in there. We're learning. We're looking. We may discover that we've got big play in there at some point. Right now doesn't look really big and you don't hear us talk about it very much. But I like having a little scouting force out there, always looking around to see what's there. And then if we get started, we can move fast. So, yeah, I like him. I like our doorbell a lot, by the way. It's really cool.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess Nish, but it's a gaming's not a niche market, so it's hard to call that niche. It's It's mostly gaming today. There are places in the world where a lot of mechanical keyboards are used. In China, for example, a lot of non-gaming. And I think this generation that grew up playing games, if we have keyboards, they want them in their regular keyboards. So I think they're the ones that are going to continue to grow that market long term.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Only invest in stuff where we feel like we could really do something substantial and different. And we felt like we could do something better. And we did. And we do have better keys for the better switches for the applications. And then we've worked with alternative suppliers. There are a lot of people doing switches. There are two or three different companies doing switches for mechanical keys, and they're all good. And I think ours are very good. So we use everybody. We do use Jerry. We use a range of things tonight. And I suspect we'll keep doing that. I like the competition too. I like the fact that everybody's really, you know, actually, I think the switchmakers have gotten a lot better. I mean, one of the reasons why people like mechanical keys and non-mechanical, the ones that are quiet is I think the switches have just gotten a lot better. The competition has really helped. The market size has grown and it's made a more exciting place to be for investment.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, this is like a good question. You make your own switches, you use some other switches, cherries, a famous supplier of switches. I don't think we often think about those suppliers the way that you might, why decide to invest in your own versus going out and buying cherry switches.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll be killed for this if I answer it, but I will because I'll never step away from answering it. I really like Me, I like Cherokees. They do a really nice job. And I think we've come up with keys, I think at times have been better, but they're consistently very good keys, but very good switches. Congratulations, Sharon.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I go back and forth. I use more of our gaming mechanical keyboards for a long time when I was in the office. At home, I used a predecessor to MX Keys, which is a very quiet key feel. So I go back and forth. I like the substantial feedback of a mechanical key, but I also like the total silence like an MX key. So I really go back and forth.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That'll help me with Eugene's personal review because I'm going to give him credit for that because people that are launching a lot of things that were smaller before it actually paid off because it found the right vehicle. The converse is actually true and false. I mean, on the one hand, it is true that it's a great way to discover new things. On the other hand, we already know the categories in the core productivity mouse and keyboards so well that what we've done there is as we've ramped up, they've become big products overnight. As we launch these things, we launch MX Keys, which is a very high-end keyboard, the highest end keyboard I think we really ever sold. And it's a monster. It's one of our biggest keyboards now. And when we launched those keyboards in mice in the productivity section, they're all huge. MX Master 3 is a monster in size and a number we sell on the revenue. So I think we haven't had to do as much experimentation there. Pop keys might be viewed as an experiment, but I bet it's going to be very big, that one you talked about that's really cool and kind of sexy look, the mechanical keyboard.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think they're probably right. And I think what's happened is we discovered that we were launching a whole lot of products and they're all pretty small in gaming. They're good, but they're small. And then we would once in a while launch one like G502, which is the biggest selling mouse in the world, and it would be like a huge product. And it took us a lot.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of it, and then you can create your own merch, you know, you can have hats and shirts and everything else, just with a click of a button. So we decided this is really, really cool. We can enable a whole generation of people to try to make a living or at least to try to make a following in that space. So a lot of that was existing technology. Some of it's new. And we're developing right now. And we're super excited about this space, just like we were gaming. I think it's bigger. It's a bigger space by far than game.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Couple things. I think gaming was really the most obvious and biggest thing we've ever done in lifestyle. We went in there really thinking of gaming as another category of physical products, but we discovered very quickly these are lifestyle products. These are people really associate who they are with these sports, you know, this is going to become the biggest collection of sports in the world. And so when we found that we started to think, God, there's really something here. And then as we started looking at that, we got really excited about streaming and creating people like you, like you're doing right now, but on a much smaller scale, who are creating their own thing, you know, want to have their own podcast or want to create music or create TikTok videos. We got really interested in could we help those people fulfill their passions, you know, and we ended up buying blue microphones and we were deeper into all the categories of streamlabs we went in there first because of gaming. Then once we were in there really, wow, this is really cool for general streamers. It's an easy way to set up. You can make money and not, and we collect anything.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that was kind of what I was saying about investment. Two years ago when he talked before all this happened, the investment was really in gaming. And that was kind of laddering into creators, right? We're making hardcore gamer products, RGB lights, lots of customization. You could see that. That was the Streamlabs acquisition. Here's this big growing market But that is not the same as a lot of people working from home, or there are Excel influencers on TikTok now, which I'm very intrigued by. All these things have happened that we're not gaming. Are the products the same? Are you just reusing some of that engineering? Are there new kinds of products? How are you attacking the sort of the developing trend that isn't gaming? Do you have to shift resources to it?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've developed our own switches from time to time. We worked with the big switch makers too. We have a really deep understanding of switches. There's switches in everything. There are switches in our mice, there's switches in keyboards. There are switches that are no longer real switches. They're actually magnets. They feel like you got a switch in there, but it's just a magnet. We do that mice now, for example. But yeah, I mean, we're deep in the technology of all that. But when you step out of it, could these become cultural products? I think so. I think they already have become in some places and in some applications, especially gaming. And I think it's possible that that could really happen in this space. So I'm glad that you are intrigued by these new top keys. I am too. I love this product. You can pop off the keys and put on emojis. It's just a cool physical thing to do. So we'll see.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just a really interesting product, right? The aesthetics of it are really important, but write those mechanical keyboard fans. They care about the feel. They will argue about reliability. They know the names of the switches. What's the balance there? Are you deeply invested in switch engineering? Are you mostly thinking about how it looks?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How does that work? We love keyboards and we have loved keyboards for years, always, but especially in the last five or six years. We just felt like, gosh, we can do a lot more with keyboards. And when mechanical keyboards took off, they took off first in, I think in Korea and the game big in gaming. And now they're making their way into non-gaming applications. And the one you're talking about pop keys, which we launched first in China, now it's launching in the US and launching Europe. It is Adora. They're just super fun, you know. We do have somebody who wakes up and goes to bed, thinking about those adorable keyboards, but I'd say that one is a big business for us. And we got really excited about the leader of that total business, got very excited about it. We've been talking about for four or five years, and she's done an amazing job, Art, who works for her, has done an amazing job, Tolia. We've got a team that are super passionate about keyboards. Believe me, to them, it's certainly not boring. And to me either.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think it's very tempting to think of mice and keyboards as being boring, but they're keyboards particularly have become like a cultural product. There are mechanical keyboard fans that are deep into what switches they're using. I actually just released an adorable keyboard. There are influencers on TikTok and YouTube that show off their office setups They become a cultural product as much as a utility product. Was that investment in place or is that something you had to pivot? Was that something that came up to you? Or did you have a keyboards PM that was like, we got to start making extremely adorable keyboards because that's where the market is? How does that work?”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, ironically, when I came to Logitick in 10 years ago, before the first things I did, I took 75% of the people out of mice and keyboards and put them into new things because I thought, well, this is going to be a slow growth category. So we'll grow in all the other ones. Little did I know that those categories keep growing pretty nicely. And then the better we got at innovating using design in those categories, the higher the growth got. And actually, even before the pandemic, we were growing very nicely, mice and keyboards. So we had already put a bunch of resources into it. We already had a really good strategy for growing a mice and keyboards. We're going after different types of audiences. So the cool thing is when the pandemic hit, we're already there. So yeah, we're putting even more in there, but we're already putting a lot in. And we'll keep investing. I'm excited about those businesses.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got a couch that's full of remote and sitting going remote, like 12 remote. So, what Harmony did was it just simplified all that dramatically, cut it all into one remote. It was super easy and it was beautiful. We'll roll forward. Now you've got fewer and fewer devices. More and more is integrated into the TV itself or into your Apple TV. So you don't need as many remotes. And actually, the complexities inside the system itself, now you've got a whole bunch of apps. And those apps are showing up. So the real question was, can we be an app selector? Can we somehow be the interface between all those apps in you different way or not? And we looked at it. We thought hard about it. We thought, you know, that's the domain of suppliers that are already in the market doing a good job. We've got to be able to do something special for them. And after a lot of hard thought, we just thought, you know what, we have so many more opportunities out there. We're going to leave that behind.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, at the end of the day, if you think about what's happened in the living room, and Harmony was created, there were a whole bunch of devices sitting around you that had individual remotes. And you're like, man, this is a nightmare. I don't know where the remote went for the subwoofer. They're all over the place.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's kind of the way I feel about new products. It's the way I feel about old products. I mean, I grew up doing products and marketing, and I think we can make anything successful. I'm always optimistic all the way to last day. And I was about harmony. And I still think we could do something with harmony. But it goes back to resources of where are you going to focus? And there are people out there who absolutely adore harmony. And we're going to keep supporting them. But we're not going to create a great business out of harmony. We have so many great businesses we're in and so many more we're creating. And harmony isn't going to be one of them.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really tough to decide ever to stop doing something. It's one of the hardest decisions of business. I'll go back to the other one where we're creating a new product, which we call seeds, you know, those 19 new things or 15 new things are working all the time. What I heard, Jeff Beaso, I heard him on stage actually say, somebody said, how do you say I wouldn't stop one of those things? He paused for a second. He said, you know, it's when the last passionate advocate falls and the person interviewing said, so who's usually the last passionate advocate? And he said, me.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's a lot of excitement about entering new categories and figuring out how to do it. I feel like you had to know this question was coming. The last time I talked to you, I was like, what's going on with these harmony remotes? And just a few months ago, you finally wound it down.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have 23 direct reports, which is a little on the high side for most people, but I really like that. I always say if you've got 23 director reports, people say, how do you manage 23 people? And I always say, well, if I have to manage them, I can't have 23 people reporting to me, so I don't manage 23 people. I have 23 people who are like my partners. And we work alongside each other. And so I have a meeting every week that lasts an hour where those 23 people, each one of them spends a minute and says or two and says, here's what's not going right, or here's what here's a problem I'm dealing with you should know about. That's it. And then we meet. We have two big meetings every three months. One of them is looking back on what we learned and the other one's looking forward on where we're headed. And those are different topics. But it's a fun little rhythm and it's not overly bureaucratic. It becomes a little chaotic, but it's super interesting and fun.”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've got so many products around my, I'm in the office right now. And I actually was just using our newest product for the conference room. And it's got this really cool follow you feature, you know, if you move around and it moves a little too fast for me. But I've got new products spread around my desk all the time. I'm trying new stuff every day. I love it. It's one of the funniest things about this job”
2021-12-21 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Logitech bet big on work from home · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT