Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell is leaving the company

Nest CEO Tony Fadell is leaving the company he founded six years ago.

Fadell announced the news in a lengthy post on Nest’s blog, where he described his departure as “bittersweet.” Fadell sold Nest to Google (now Alphabet) two years ago, but up until now, remained CEO of the company throughout its existence.

His exit certainly is curious, given a recent report by The Information that described Nest as innovation-stalled and hampered by Fadell’s leadership.

Before cofounding Nest with ex-Apple engineer and manager Matt Rogers, Fadell worked at Apple and played a role in creating the iPod.

Here are the highlights from Nest’s announcement:

• Marwan Fawaz, head of Motorola Home, will replace Fadell as CEO.
• Fadell will remain at Alphabet and advise Larry Page.
• Fadell’s departure “has been in progress since late last year,” says Fadell.
• He told the New York Times: “I’m a guy who’s at the beginning of things. I don’t like to do maintenance mode. It’s not what gets me out of bed.”
• Fadell made this decision to leave entirely by himself, according to Fadell.
• Fadell on Nest’s new CEO: “Marwan’s extensive technology and engineering knowledge, his experience with global service providers, as well as his background in connected home platforms will be valuable in continuing our trajectory, especially in scaling the business, working with our partners, and supporting our enterprise channels.”

You can read the blog post in full here.