Why Nest co-founder Matt Rogers is still bullish on HVAC

Back in 2010, when Matt Rogers founded Nest with Tony Fadell, home heating and cooling wasn’t exactly an area you’d think two ex-Apple engineers would be obsessing about. 

That fixation defined a new category of product, the smart thermostat, which is now serving as a beachhead for other companies’ smart home ambitions, even as Google lets Nest whither on the vine, killing products that were once core to the company.

“Nest is not necessarily doing everything that I set them out to do years ago,” Rogers told TechCrunch. “It’s one of the things when you sell a company.”

But Rogers hasn’t been able to shake his obsession with HVAC.

“I’ve been thinking about HVAC for a really long time — longer than most,” Rogers said with a chuckle. “And the opportunity is really great. The opportunity to drive efficiency, comfort, better quality of life — those things are all true.”

Rogers’ optimism, coupled with his seemingly inexhaustible energy, are what led him to serve as an informal advisor to Quilt, the heat pump startup, even as he was launching his own new food waste startup, Mill, and running an investment, philanthropy, and activism organization, Incite, with his wife. 

“I had a lot going on starting Mill,” Rogers said.

Now, with Rogers happy where Mill is at, he said he has time to “go deeper with a company.” In this case, that means joining Quilt as an independent board member.

Rogers met Quilt’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Lambert, a few years ago, just before the company raised its seed round. Since then, they’ve been in near constant communication.

“We talked like almost every week, for years,” Rogers said. “Sometimes Paul’s co-founder, Matt, would give me a call from their factory or from a supplier with, ‘Hey, what do you think about X? Give me some advice.’ At some point, it’s good to formalize.”

With Rogers taking a board seat, it’s even more likely that Quilt will pick up where Nest left off. The company has already focused heavily on product design and user experience. “We’re really trying to do the Nest playbook,” Lambert said.

“The world is getting hotter and it is getting richer,” he said. “And as a world gets hotter, people need more cooling, and a heat pump is an AC. And when the world gets richer, people buy more cooling. It’s one of the most dependable things they consume as soon as they have more disposable income.”

“Those macro trends are all true,” Rogers agreed. “It’s good to work with a team that’s carrying the torch.”