Sonos CEO Patrick Spence Steps Down

The timing of this seems odd especially as he has bluffed it out for so long.

What is missing (IMHO) is the announcement of a successor to rebuild, the announcement reads like nothing fundamentally will change and that is not good news for the customers.

This may well end up filed under “be careful what you wish for”.

I don’t celebrate anyone losing their job, but it was bound to happen

This letter from the interim CEO Tom Conrad is worth reading:

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342354/sonos-interim-ceo-tom-conrad-employee-letter

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342354/sonos-interim-ceo-tom-conrad-employee-letter

Interim isn’t a successor, understood, but the timing makes me think that the decision to let Spence go was dependent on sales numbers from the ending retail season. I think it’s too early to really tell what the new plan is, if there is a plan yet. It doesn’t it necessarily make sense to scrap existing plans for an entirely new direction.  It may be that the board wants to figure out what the ‘new’ plan is before hiring a permanent CEO.  Don’t know.  It obviously could be a case where the grass is not greener on the other side, but we won’t know till we a couple months from now at best.

Seems like he has the right attitude.  However, decisions like the one to release the app stem from a culture that I’ve experienced before.  The ones at the top really don’t understand the technology, and they resent having to listen to the code monkeys because they can’t understand them either, so they wield the power with no ability to grasp what the impact will be. 

It’s like the Admiral who had a solution to the U-Boat problem in WWII - Just drain the oceans.  When told that would be impossible, he replied “Don’t tell me about any logistical problems, just do as I say!”  The culture that allows an Admiral like that to rise through the ranks doesn’t disappear overnight.  Trust me, it takes decades.

These things are always straight forward - he’s blown various KPIs for the board and they ran out of belief he could turn it around. 

Remember the ACE was going to be the reason that the app fiasco was worth it but from all accounts, sales have been terrible, just terrible. 

Finally! The company is a disaster, worse if you happen to have issues with the App or product. The support is woeful and escalations and resolutions are insanely difficult to achieve. 

Against my better judgement I purchased the Arc Ultra to replace my Arc setup (Arc, 2 x Era 300’s and Sub 3) Installing the Arc Ultra was an absolute PITA. My entire system disappeared during the process and the whole lot had to be factory reset individually. Once sorted, the Arc Ultra will not trueplay no matter what I do, the audio is distorted, crackly/pop and on occasion the audio response from Alexa sounds like electrical arcing. 

Sonos support have been awful, truly awful. I have been misinformed, they closed the case whilst waiting on a response from their engineering, and I went through 2 “level 2” escalations before a third advised the previous 2 had basically handled the case badly (I had been mis-advised that the official stance was to return the Arc Ultra for a refund!) 

If this is what I should expect from the flagship Sonos soundbar then this just highlights how truly shocking things got under the outgoing CEO. 

Currently awaiting an exchange of my Arc Ultra from my retailer, if the situation is not resolved soon I will be requesting a full refund. The whole situation is absolutely appalling. 

I’m sure we will see a lot of activity over the coming days as the news hits and speculation starts. I will keep my personal opinions regarding the leadership to myself. I am mindful that despite the failings, he is still a human being and will be dealing with his own thoughts as he departs the company. 

Turing a well regarded leading brand into a dumpster fire really pays well. The $1.875 million severance he’s getting should help him during this difficult time. 

My thoughts are with the 100 or so employees who were fired as collateral damage after the disaster app release and those who remain who by all accounts have a difficult task ahead. 
 

https://www1.salary.com/Patrick-Spence-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-SONOS-INC.html#:~:text=As%20Chief%20Executive%20Officer%20at,for%20the%202023%20fiscal%20year.

5.2 Million?

I think he’ll be fine. Good riddance. I do hope the best for the employees and wish some proper management would come up.

I'm ecstatic to see him leave. Disastrous glitchy app, dropping Google Assistant support, and ignoring numerous minimum volume complaints about Sonos Ace. Good riddance to him. 

Again no surprise for me. He was doomed after the first week of the new app. Probably agreed a plan with the board to get to the New Year and step down. His apology came way too late, and despite fixes the product is still not where it was before the fateful upgrade. That, as has been pointed out by others, shows a spectacular level of arrogance which I would bet is still evident across the rest of the board. 
 

I will not morn his departure but feel for those sacrificed by his poor decisions, which even someone with a kindergarten level of IT and business sense, would know would cause massive customer dissatisfaction. It’s become a case study on how not to do things, up (or should I say down) there with debacles such as the Atari ET game, Kodak ignoring digital, Nokias demise and British Airways move into LHR terminal 5. 
 

 Now he’s gone I may get an arc Ultra😂

Many months too late in my opinion.

What a legacy - ruined the app therefore ruining the product and the company and alienated a massive percentage of loyal customers.

IMHO, the fish may rot from the head, yet there are still a lot of “so called leaders” in this fish head to be held accountable (not to mention the very board that was supposed to give guidance and oversight to this company).

All the signs were there - arrogance, ignorance, and naked greed sank this ship and wasn’t just the captain who should be held accountable! 

Give the 100 employees their job back. 
it’s them that have suffered for the  CEO and boards hubris and foolishness. 
And they’re the ones who the customers need on board to get their systems back from the burning trash can that they became. 

Aren’t ‘Share led’ stock market companies just disgusting! All of the emphasis on customer care and product maintenance is sacrificed to focus on the ‘next big cash hit’ for investors. 

Faithful employees are cut while the board and CEO save face and customers money to allow for a massive golden handshake. And getting handed shares at a low point in the company’s stock value mean when someone else cleans up his/their mess, he’ll see a nice little bounce in his investment. Obscene! 

I never thought a discussion about sound quality would end with an indictment of capitalism!

Currently searching pawn shops for a 1980s Technics Amp and some Bose 301’s
 

Not surprising. Easy to imagine big projections fell flat. Pushing the headphones a quarter would have been the brave decision!

Too late. What is the timeline for a basic fix for the known bugs? This is amature hour!

Ya I was kind of dumbstruck by Sonos support as well. Like level 1 was a frontline rep who basically didn’t seem to have much Sonos knowledge or experience of their own. It was like they were searching a knowledge base for answers. When I got moved up to a level 2, a support supervisor, I was surprised he wasn’t even aware of well known Sonos issues either (ie Google Assistant doesn’t work with Apple Music). Again it was like he knew a bit more than level 1 but seemed to be just searching a knowledge base to get answers as well. When I got elevated to level 3, I was finally talking to a Sonos engineer directly and it was great. Like he just knew stuff, like you’d expect every support person would know.

Its not like I’m expecting level 1 and 2 to be experts but come on, the support people themselves should be experienced Sonos users and should know some of the main issues without having to search a knowledge base. I mean even if they are searching a knowledge base, you’d think they would become familiar with the main issues if they keep coming up as results all the time.

I don’t blame the reps that much though. This is the company’s decision as to how their support group works. But with the app fiasco, I’m sure they got overloaded with user support requests and had to hire extra outside help who had little to no knowledge of their products. That’s really, really bad in terms of a customer experience though. 

Have you read the information in the app update schedule here, seen the posted release notes here, or even the quarterly comments here?

Spence’s arrogance and condescending public statements made it clear to me that Sonos will never really recover operationally and reputationally as long as he continued as CEO. He profoundly and repeatedly broke the trust of Sonos’ customers, its business partners and its board members. His departure is positive news for all stakeholders.

Interim CEO has got rid of Chief product officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, the guy who told us how brave Sonos were being.  The whole position is being removed, which is quite a call.

As was said right at the beginning, there will be case studies about all of this and how Sonos mis-handled it all, including Spence telling us how great the App was and how he'd been using it for months without issue.  It was always only a matter of time before he went.

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/14/24343873/sonos-product-officer-maxime-bouvat-merlin-leaving

As one of the earliest Sonos adopters who has spent a lot of money on their products over the many years, this app debacle was a real gut punch. And particularly, the way it torpedoed my particular use case, which is the local music library and display of album art (only recently fixed), was an unbelievable slap in the face to a loyal customer. As a retired software developer, I believe that the app developers didn’t want to release that app, and that they were forced to do it by management. I’ve seen it over and over: non-tech people insisting on unrealistic schedules and just waving off the objections of the developers, like the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert. Upon hearing the news that Spence was out, I was unsurprised but unmoved. This app debacle has turned me from a loyal fan to someone who doesn’t care much anymore. What they put their customers through should be unsurvivable for a company. I guess we’ll see if all the blather is just hot air or if anyone in Sonos still remembers the company I remember. Not holding my breath.

My favorite comment so far from this article is from: buddyrich33  It reflects my understanding of how far they screwed the pooch with this new approach: