Tony Fadell is arguably the most successful Apple executive who continued to have success after Apple. Fortune takes a look at Fadell's career from his first failed attempts to raise investment for mobile devices, to his breakout success with the iPod at Apple, to the founding of Nest, which aims to take "unloved products in the home and make them all magical." The profile includes details about Fadell's relationship with Steve Jobs (it was complicated), Nest's philosophy contrasted with Apple's (it's less stiff), its relationship with the rest of Google (guess who is the sugar mama?), the pitch that had venture capitalists throwing money at Fadell (it involves black velvet), and a great line about Fadell's wife, the widely-admired HR recruiter Danielle Lambert, uttered by Jack Dorsey.