Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is leaving after a failed app update

Headphones manufacturer Sonos It is witnessing some important changes. Patrick Spence, the company’s CEO (pictured above), is leaving the company after eight years in the job. Tom Conrad, co-founder of Pandora and a member of the Sonos board of directors, assumes the role of interim CEO starting today.

The past year has been a complicated one for the headphone manufacturer. The company released a major update to its software platform, but it was crippled by bugs and removed some outdated features.

While this could be a problem for any brand, it’s a big problem for a brand like Sonos, since they’re known for the reliability of their products. The main promise of Sonos speakers is that you can buy multiple speakers, and they will work together seamlessly across rooms and music services.

As a result of updating bugs, the company has spent a lot of time fixing its software platform and releasing updates to bring back features and make everything work more reliably. But it couldn’t get ahead of the bad news, so products were delayed and sales declined.

Recently, Sonos started shipping new products again, and launched Sonos Ace headphones and Arc Ultra speakersbut it seems that its reputation has been tarnished, and it will be difficult to restore it – sales of Ace headphones have declined Disappointing.

In August the company Demobilization 100 employees, or about 6% of its workforce at the time. Revenue decreased 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, and was also the Chief Product Officer of the short-lived video streaming service, Quibi. More recently, he created zeroFasting application.

“I think we’ll all agree that this year we’ve let a lot of people down. As we’ve seen, doing some important things right (Arc Ultra and Ace are great products!) isn’t enough when our customers’ alarms don’t go off, and their kids can’t hear their special playlist “They’re not firing, or they can’t pause the music in time to answer the doorbell,” Conrad wrote in an email to Sonos employees. Edge.

As Conrad’s new job title suggests, Sonos’ board of directors is searching for the company’s next permanent CEO. Sonos shares It is currently up 3.3% in pre-market trading.