On the season premiere of Bloomberg’s ‘Studio 1.0’ this week, Emily Chang had a chance to sit down with current Nest CEO and former Apple executive Tony Fadell to discuss a wide range of topics, from his relationship with Steve Jobs to the influence that Apple had on the way he runs his business today.
It’s a fascinating conversation, but one specific tidbit stuck out.
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At one point in the conversation, Chang and Fadell began discussing the potential of Apple building a car of its own. Fadell noted that a car has many of the same components as an iPhone, just scaled up, so the company already has the tools it needs.
Chang then asked Fadell is he and Steve Jobs had ever discussed an Apple car.
His answer?
“Yes, we did. We had a couple walks. And this was in 2008. [The conversation consisted of questions like] “If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?””
Fadell then explained that although it was a subject of interest for Jobs and the rest of the company, they were always far too “busy” and “constrained” to dedicate the necessary resources to the project. At the end of the day, Apple realized it was in its best interest to focus on phones, even though TVs, video cameras and cars were all under consideration at one time or another.
