Gawker: valleywag, tony fadell

Apple pays off iPod daddy with $8.4 million in stock

Owen Thomas — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST

Why did Tony Fadell, the driving force behind the iPod, leave Apple? We know this much: Apple is willing to pay him handsomely not to make a fuss on the way out. Digital Daily notes that he's getting paid $300,000 a year through March 24, 2010. That's a 40 percent paycut from his regular salary of $500,009, but the salary is the least of his post-Apple compensation. according to Apple's 10-K filing. If he keeps his gig as as a "special advisor," doesn't sue Apple, and agrees not to recruit Apple employees to any new venture, he'll get 77,500 shares of Apple stock — currently worth a cool $8.4 million.

Tony Fadell's wife leaves Apple, too

Owen Thomas — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:20:00 EST

A tender postscript at the bottom of a New York Times article about iPod creator Tony Fadell's departure from Apple: His wife, Danielle Lambert, who works as a VP of human resources at the company, is leaving, too. A good thing: If she had stayed at Apple, the line that Fadell was leaving to spend more time with his family might not have run true.

iPod's father leaves Apple

Owen Thomas — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:00:00 EST

Tony Fadell, the head of Apple's iPod division, is exiting Steve Jobs's reality distortion field. While Fake Steve Jobs likes to take credit for inventing the frigging iPod, its real mastermind is Tony Fadell, who took his plans for an MP3 player to Apple in 2001 as a consultant. His replacement: Former IBM chip expert Mark Papermaster, whose erstwhile employer is suing Apple to prevent him from taking a job there. That Papermaster is replacing Fadell makes its lawsuit even stranger; it is seeking to enforce a noncompete clause in his contract, but a job overseeing MP3 players and cell phones hardly seems a competitive threat to IBM. Fadell is planning to take some time off Pity. Since he joined Apple, Fadell's homepage has turned into a placeholder. We were looking forward to the return of the "jazzy, shameless self-promotion" it once offered.

Apple TV launches movie rentals, but who's paying the late fee?

Jordan Golson — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:20:51 EST

Two weeks after it was supposed to be delivered, Apple has issued an update to its Apple TV set-tops, bringing with it Flickr integration and iTunes movie rentals. On January 15, Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised the update "within 2 weeks." The company later pushed that back "another week or two." Well, better late than never, I guess. What I want to know is who's taking the fall for this one: Tony Fadell, head of the iPod division; Bertrand Serlet, Apple's software-engineering chief; or Sina Tamaddon, who's in charge of application software. Let the fingerpointing begin!