Tom Conrad
Tom Conrad is the CEO of Zero and on the board of Sonos. He began his career in engineering at Apple, where he helped build key features that remain in iOS today. Tom was previously the VP of Product at Snap and the chief technology officer of Pandora. He also held leadership positions at notable tech flops Pets.com and Quibi, giving him a unique perspective not only on what it takes to build a successful company but also on lessons from failure.
Career (separate track) Skills
Professional fulfillment is driven by personal alignment with the product and the quality of the team rather than brand prestige or external financial success.
"When I look back on my career and think about the things that I've done, my professional satisfaction is not well correlated with those external metrics and very, very coordinated with do I love the t..."
Initial gut reactions during the interview process are often more accurate reflections of culture fit than the logical justifications we create to ignore red flags.
"Every single time I've taken a job where it turned out that I was working with people who had a different set of values or working styles than I had, I knew. You tell yourself that, at least in my cas..."
Highly talented individuals can often achieve more impact and personal satisfaction by joining an existing team with a viable problem than by forcing themselves into a founder role.
"There's this belief that everybody needs to be a founder. I think, in some ways, our industry would be much better off if there were fewer founders. There's an entire category of smart, creative, hard..."