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original title: an app update almost killed this 22-year-old company: ignoring technical debt, madly laying off employees to reduce costs, the ceo ignored employee warnings to speed up development

compiled by | nuka-cola chu xingjuan

ignoring "technical debt," ignoring employee warnings and frantically cutting costs have combined to create a crisis that has left this world-renowned high-end audio manufacturer stuck in the quagmire to this day.

a new speaker-control app released in may was supposed to be the culmination of sonos ceo patrick spence's grand plan.

sonos is a world-leading smart speaker company founded 22 years ago by a group of music enthusiasts including john macfarlane, craig shelburne, tom cullen and trung mai. in 2018, sonos was listed on the nasdaq, and at that time the company also stated that it was not only a hardware company but also a software company. however, the company has now made a big splash in software.

the market had previously reported that the original sonos app was not able to meet all the needs of modern audiophiles, who wanted to listen to multiple audio sources from local and cloud sources in multiple devices and rooms. spence launched a new app in the hope of expanding its market share. however, the result was contrary to expectations. after the release, reports of software bugs followed one after another, with quite serious consequences.

one user said that the speaker "made a terrible high-pitched sound in the middle of the night, which scared my whole family and the dog at home." another user complained, "we no longer dare to use the new sonos system because we are afraid that the volume will suddenly go to 100%." ​​other customers said that many people felt that "they were going crazy."

the new app had many flaws, including intermittent sound, sudden volume increases that could not be adjusted, and even the occasional "disappearance" of the device on the app side. according to the tech website engadget, the app did not even have basic functions such as setting sleep timers and alarms. for a time, in every corner of the internet, as long as someone mentioned sonos, it would inevitably arouse the anger and rebuke of many customers.

this software update has become one of the most disastrous events in the consumer technology market in recent years.

for the professional audio industry, it is often extremely difficult to regain the trust of customers. now, spence, who has been in charge of the company for 12 years, may only have a few months to save the future of sonos. in the meantime, the incident has caused irreversible consequences, and the company said it would cost at least $20 million to $30 million to fix the problem. the application failure means that sales of existing products must also slow down, and two products that were originally scheduled to be launched have been forced to be postponed. as a result, the company lowered its peak revenue forecast for this fiscal year from $1.7 billion to $1.5 billion.

sonos will also lay off 100 employees, about 6% of the total number of employees, in response to the software repair crisis. it is reported that the layoffs are mainly concentrated in the company's marketing department. spence said, "this move is difficult but necessary to ensure that meaningful investment in sonos' product roadmap continues, while laying the foundation for sonos' long-term success."

what exactly did the company do and why did such a serious technical problem occur? these questions have been bothering everyone in recent months.

why did it happen?

faced with the sudden crisis, sonos ceo patrick spence decided to seek help from the company's chief legal counsel eddie lazarus, asking him to conduct an "in-depth study" and "reflection" on a series of events before the release of the new app in may. more accurately, this is a "post-mortem analysis."

lazarus interviewed about 20 key employees and reviewed previously retained meeting recordings before submitting the report to spence and the company's board of directors in late july. lazarus declined to disclose the contents of the report, but after communicating with sources within the company over the past few weeks, foreign media roughly judged the conclusions of the report: ignoring "technical debt", ignoring employee warnings and frantically cutting costs, all of which have caused this crisis that has caused this world-renowned high-end audio manufacturer to remain in the quagmire.

ignore technical debt

sonos’s experience was essentially a wake-up call that the company’s leadership had ignored the risks of “technical debt” — a term coined by software engineers to describe the combined threats to security, availability and stability posed by outdated code and infrastructure.

sonos has accumulated a mountain of technical debt over the past two decades, and when the company decided in mid-2022 to seriously revamp its companion app, it realized that the infrastructure and code it had long relied on were written in outdated languages. the sonos app has been remade, spliced, and modified so frequently that the vast majority of the effort in the new app is not in introducing new features but in clarifying the original mess.

the company could have started addressing its technical debt sooner, but it lacked a key ingredient to move the needle: a sense of urgency. the catalyst eventually came in the form of the sonos ace headphones, the first purely mobile product in the sonos family, a complement to the wi-fi speakers that were already in the home or office. to work with the new product, the original app had to be rebuilt, and the cloud computing setup that supported the service needed to be adjusted accordingly.

pursuing rapid development and drastically reducing staff and costs

sonos' annual revenue growth has fallen sharply as customers have started to spend more time outdoors, and wall street has begun to question where sonos's further revenue growth will come from. the sonos ace is a big part of the company's answer. despite the company's reputation, sonos has about 2% of the $100 billion audio market, and the main gap is that it does not have a headphone product that can directly compete with apple, sennheiser, bose and other manufacturers.

spence told investors that he was prepared to speed up development by launching "at least two new products a year." at the same time, he also promised to keep expenses low. one of the main means of reducing costs and increasing efficiency is naturally layoffs, the first round in june 2023 and the second in august. among the employees laid off are members of the company's quality assurance team.

“my quest for speed seems to be counterproductive,” spence admitted.

restructuring causes chaos, employee warnings ignored

sonos ceo patrick spence addressed employees in a company video address in early september 2024.

two former sonos employees recalled that in addition to layoffs, the company's restructuring led by chief product officer maxime bouvat-merlin also caused considerable chaos. a former engineer emphasized, "they rigidly divided people who had worked together for many years to create excellent products. i don't understand why they made such adjustments." (lazarus said that the problems that arose during the restructuring process were discussed in the investigation report.)

as the release date of the new app approached, frustrations peaked. it was clear that the app was far from ready. many people at sonos were die-hard fans of the brand before they joined, according to three current and former employees. they began to issue strong warnings directly to spence and other executives, and even "ranting" and "screaming" in company meetings.

the hysteria was fueled by concerns that sonos’s pressing need to reach new customers and spence’s promises of returns to investors had trumped his commitment to ensuring that the devices already purchased by long-time loyal customers continued to work properly. “that’s what caused them to ignore other issues,” one former senior employee explained. “they thought they had made a big, bold decision, but it turned out to be a mistake.”

at one meeting, an employee who worked on the app publicly expressed concern that putting more pressure on the executive team could jeopardize his or her job, according to two people who attended the meeting. (the person was recently fired, according to linkedin.)

lazarus disagrees that the lackluster app crushed sonos’ corporate culture. he says the company did take note of some of the warnings, and as a result pushed back the app’s original launch date from early 2024 to may. he also says he didn’t hear any “ranting” or “screaming” in the meeting, but adds, “i think these kinds of disagreements can be resolved in a way that’s focused on the customer experience and is good for the company.”

lazarus also mentioned that the company has compiled a list of "foundational" bugs that need to be fixed before release. as for those bugs that may not be important, or features that can be put on hold, they will be dealt with slowly after release. when asked whether the company's understanding of "foundational" bugs may conflict with customer views, lazarus paused, and then said that "our list of basic bugs is obviously not comprehensive."

employees are angry—but more surprising is that no one seems to be advocating for spence to step down. the canadian leader of the clothing inspection is on what one employee calls an "apology tour." that includes visiting several offices within the company and assuring employees that he is back in control. and some employees believe that further leadership turmoil will only slow down the progress of solving the problem. the company is rolling out updates to the app every two weeks, with the goal of achieving functional parity with the old app as soon as possible (but the damage to business reputation will surely last longer).

in a video message to company employees earlier this month, spence said the findings in the lazarus report would inform new "commitments" at the company. "we intend to learn from this difficult period," he said, while informing employees that this year's annual bonuses and performance-based pay increases would be canceled.

time is running out for sonos

sonos’ stock price has fallen more than 35% since the new app was released. the company, with a market value of about $1.4 billion, is at a disadvantage to potential competitors such as google and apple, which have smart speaker products. meanwhile, mainstream websites such as the new york times’ wirecutter have recently withdrawn their recommendations for sonos products. buyers who browse any conscientious audio forum can first-hand experience the daunting challenges facing sonos.

spence takes public feedback and answers questions on platforms like reddit. on tuesday, the former blackberry executive stepped up to the more than 250,000 sonos users in a "ask me anything" session on the sonos subreddit. they are a loyal group of fans who spend thousands of dollars to equip their homes with the latest speakers. they are die-hard users and self-promoters in their own right, but the companion app glitch is putting their patience to the test.

in response to questions, spence made it clear that the company would not revert to the old version of the sonos app while the new app was being fixed and improved. "after extensive testing, we are sad to announce that reverting to version s2 has only made the issues worse," he wrote. "i know this is disappointing and personally hard for me."

following the example of amazon founder jeff bezos, spence has also opened an email box where customers can send him complaints and feedback directly. most complaints will be handled by the customer service team, and some will be handled by him personally. it is reported that he used to receive dozens of complaint emails per week, and since the new app was released in may, spence has received more than 30,000 complaint emails.

spence assured investors that "we are doing everything we can to resolve all issues before the christmas holidays." from the current situation, the investors have not forced him to step down, but if the problems cannot be solved, his throne will be in jeopardy. he explained that the "stubborn bugs" have been "found" and there is an "action plan" to solve the problems.

experts say that none of the current competitors have sonos' expertise in multi-room setups, which is a decisive factor in many consumers' willingness to buy. jeffries analyst brent thill pointed out that this advantage means that if the problem can be solved quickly in the next few months, consumers may choose to forgive and sonos will get back on track. in thill's view, software failures are not uncommon - after all, there have been huge blunders with crowdstrike and delta airlines before. the key to the matter is how long it will take sonos to correct its mistakes.

customers’ patience is wearing thin, but this sobering story is far from over.