Sonos CEO Patrick Spence falls on his sword after horrible app launch

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is stepping down from the corporate after eight years on the job, . This follows final yr’s , during which a redesign was lacking core options and was damaged in practically each main means.

The corporate has tasked Tom Conrad to steer the ship as interim CEO. Conrad is a present member of the Sonos board, however was a co-founder of Pandora, VP at Snap and product chief at, look forward to it, the . He additionally reportedly has a Sonos tattoo. The board has employed a agency to discover a new long-term chief.

“I feel we’ll all agree that this yr we’ve let far too many‬ individuals down,” Conrad wrote workers in a letter. “Getting again to fundamentals is critical, however clearly not sufficient to‬‭ unlock the long run all of us envision for Sonos.” He additionally recommended that he desires the corporate to broaden “effectively past” dwelling audio system and associated gear.

As for Spence, he’ll be simply advantageous. His payout bundle contains $7,500 monthly till June, a money severance of $1.9 million and his unvested shares in Sonos will vest. He was with Sonos for greater than a decade.

The choice to swap management comes after months of turmoil on the firm. It rolled out a cell app again in Might that was completely rife with bugs and lacking key options like alarms and sleep timers. Some clients even complained that whole speaker methods would now not work after updating to the brand new app. It was a complete factor.

Sonos by extending the producer guarantee for dwelling speaker merchandise and creating an advisory board that would supply the corporate with “suggestions and insights from a buyer perspective to assist form and enhance our software program and merchandise earlier than they’re launched.”

That didn’t ease the monetary burden confronted by the corporate. The inventory worth has fallen by round 13 p.c for the reason that app launched. Sonos laid off over 100 individuals in August because it tried to repair the software program and income fell 16 p.c within the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on September 28. Analysts venture an extra 15 p.c decline all through the vacation interval.