It had been a few weeks since we anticipated the departure of Patrick Spencer, CEO of Sonos and the originator of a divisive update on the app.
Sometimes it only takes a few changes to an application to get upset a large part of the customers. And this is precisely what happened to Patrick Spence, the great CEO of Sonos who saw fit to modify the app in depth which controls the different devices to confuse users.
Still considered a catastrophic update by many fans of Sonos products, although the company has now corrected the situation, this departure from the road will not have been without consequences. Indeed, Patrick Spence had to step down as president of the company, although he received compensation of nearly $2 million. We explain everything to you.
The update of the Sonos app: a grain of sand blocking the beautiful machinery
Before the launch of this new version of the application, everything was going well at Sonos. Production was at cruising speed, users were satisfied and the sales figures made company managers smile. But that changed in May 2024, when Sonos launched an almost unexpected update which removed many features appreciated by users.
This therefore had a “snowball” effect, since the Santa Barbara company had to delay the launch of certain products while waiting for fixes to its application. Because yes, the latter is a major selling point for Sonos which relies heavily on its product ecosystem to attract customers, and of which the app is in a way the conductor of the orchestra.
We might have thought that after having restored missing features on this famous application, CEO Patrick Spence would get away with it. But nay: after eight years of good and loyal service at Sonos, this emblematic figure of the company was forced to resign.
The departure of Patrick Spence makes many people happy
Since his arrival, Patrick Spence has been in charge of the development of spatial audio and new speaker categories of the company. We were also interested in the spectacular Era 100 and 300, which are perfect representatives of the direction taken by the American company in recent years.
But some of his choices have also been strongly criticized, and this app almost “sloppy” to be able to release at the same time as the first Sonos wireless headset obviously did not please users. Particularly given the price of the brand’s products.
Despite his efforts to try to get customers back into his pocket, notably with tens of millions of dollars pour “fix the application in the short term” and excuses to which users pay little attention, Patrick Spence has largely lost popularity. The dismissal of 100 employees and the drop in Sonos stock price since the app update (according to Bloomberg) did not help his case.
It was therefore enough for the CEO to be forced to leave his post, taking advantage of a nice severance package of $1,875,000 and $7,500 per month for his new role as “advisor to the Sonos board of directors” until next June. So let’s hope that Sonos doesn’t sink by then…
