Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is stepping down after the app update disaster

Some changes to Sonos. Patrick Spence, the company’s managing director (pictured above), is leaving the company after eight years in the job. Tom Conrad, the co-founder of Pandora and a member of the Sonos board, has stepped in as interim CEO as of today.

2024 has been a complicated year for the speaker manufacturer. The company released a major update to its software platform that was plagued with bugs and removed some long-standing features.

While this could be problematic for any brand, it is a major problem for a brand like Sonos. It is a brand that is known for the reliability of its products. The main promise of Sonos speakers is that you can buy several speakers, and they will work perfectly in the rooms and music services.

As a result, the company has spent a ton of time fixing its software platform and releasing app updates to add features and make everything work more reliably. Products are delayed and sales are down.

More recently, the company began shipping new products with the release of the Sonos Ace headphones and Arc Ultra soundbar. But it seems that the company’s reputation has been tarnished, and it will be difficult to recover – sales of Ace headphones have been. disappointing.

In August, the company dismissed 100 employees, or about 6% of the company’s workforce at the time. Revenues fell by 16% in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023.

Tom Conrad, the company’s interim CEO, has had a long career in technology. After founding Pandora, he joined Snap as VP of Product. He was also the Chief Product Office for the short-lived video streaming service Quibi. More recently, he created Zeroa fasting app.

“I think we will all agree that this year we have left too many people behind. As we have seen, we get some important things right (Arc Ultra and Ace are remarkable products!) It is not enough when the alarms of our customers they don’t turn off, their kids can’t listen to their playlist during breakfast, their surroundings don’t, or they can’t pause the music in time to answer the doorbell” , Conrad wrote in an email to Sonos employees obtained from The Virgin.

As Conrad’s new title suggests, the Sonos board is looking for the company’s next permanent CEO. Sonos shares they are currently up 3.3% in pre-market trading.