Rogers, Nest's chief product officer, co-founded the company in 2011 with former CEO Tony Fadell, after leaving Apple the year before. The two played key roles in the development of the iPod. Rogers was also one of the first engineers of the original iPhone and iPad.
The departure of Rogers, Nest's last remaining co-founder, marks the close of a chapter for the company. Google bought the buzzy startup in 2014 for $3 billion, in an effort to bring more hardware chops to the search giant. But Nest's tenure there has been rocky. Fadell left the company in 2016 after much turmoil and public drama. For example, he feuded with Greg Duffy, CEO of Dropcam, the smart camera company Nest bought later that year. After Duffy left Nest, he called his decision to sell the company a "mistake."
Fadell was replaced with Marwan Fawaz, a former Motorola executive. On Wednesday, Alphabet said it was reuniting Nest with Google, after three years of Nest being a semi-independent unit. As part of the change, Fawaz will now report to Rick Osterloh, the head of Google's hardware division, responsible for all the company's consumer devices, including the Google Home smart speaker and Pixel smartphones.
Rogers on Thursday said he'll be focusing on Incite, an investing organization that has three arms, each of which focuses on a different area. Incite Ventures is a fund that backs "mission-driven enterprises;" Incite Labs is a nonprofit that extends grants for charitable, educational and scientific purposes; and Incite Politics organizes and supports "initiatives to pass legislation and elect candidates who approach our country's issues from a fresh perspective."
