Transcript

Steven 00:00:00 That's what we're trying to do with repair, to make it useful and accessible. We want everyone to be able to do repairs. We want them to have that experience. We wanna make it open to them so that they can, if that's what they want to do.

Voiceover 00:00:11 Welcome to the Made by Google Podcast, where we meet the people who work on the Google products you love. Here's your host, Rachid Finge.

Rachid 00:00:19 Today we're talking to Steven Nickel, who helps to make sure that your Pixel phone is repairable.

Voiceover 00:00:25 This is the Made by Google Podcast.

Rachid 00:00:28 Steven, would you tell us a story about how a random taxi ride got you into repairs?

Steven 00:00:33 Sure, I would be happy to. This was an experience I had about four years ago maybe, where I was looking at universities with, uh, my son. We were taking an Uber to go to the campus, and I noticed in the backseat there was a big placard on his seat that said I fixed smartphones. And at that point I had been, we had been about maybe a few years into the Google journey of repair in a product of the products that we made for the consumer hardware business. And as I looked at this sign, I started to talk to him and I found out he was working out of his garage. He just started up a business where he would repair phones for people in his community. It grew, it extended further into other communities. He hired a couple people and it was just this great experience of connecting a huge business with a very personal human story. And the work that he was doing, enabling people to have easy access to repair. It made the job more of a mission. You started to see the value of the work that you're doing and how you can connect on such a personal level. Google supports billions of customers, but they're all individuals. And to have that individual story just really connected a lot of things and reinforced the importance and the value of the work my team does, and that I'm very fortunate to be able to lead at Google.

Rachid 00:01:51 I think regular listeners of the podcast know that we have an internal directory at Google where you can look up any Googler, and we all have our little mission statement on there. And yours says, repair is noble. What makes it noble according to you?

Steven 00:02:04 So in full disclosure, we have a partner named iFixit, and they do some amazing work at getting spare parts, manuals, tools to independent repair providers like the one I described in St. Louis as well as do it yourself or at home. And we've been working with them for a few years now, and I've always told their CEO their branding, their branding is just spot on. It's fantastic the way they tie it around repair. And so they have these wonderful slogans throughout their toolkits and all the materials that they have. One example on the back of my laptop, I have one of their stickers that says, Fix the World. And as I was playing around with one of their latest toolkits in the screwdriver, I saw him printed on this little handheld screwdriver was Repair is Noble. And it just clicked for me. And it's almost like a Zen Koan.

Steven 00:02:49 It's this phrase that you just keep working around through your head. You know, typical Zen Koan is, what's the sound of one hand clapping? It's kind of Repair is Noble. It just makes you think a lot about that term. And initially for me, what that meant was the value of the repair experience, which, which sometimes is missed. I've been in the consumer electronics industry for over 30 years, shockingly, and I've been really fortunate to lead teams in, in really all stages. Sales and marketing, manufacturing and engineering service and support. It's a launch culture, obviously, because you have to launch a product and none of us would be here if you don't have products out in the market. The repair teams are maybe the unsung heroes. They're a little bit behind the scenes and they're okay with that. There's a wonderful humility to the repair organizations, people that are just really focused and caring about fixing things and what a noble purpose that is if you really think about it, to want to take a product out there or take anything and be able to fix it. And so it really connected for me for the work my team does, the, the partners we work with in the field of just sort of the nobility of dedicating yourself to fixing things.

Rachid 00:03:56 It sounds to me like repair is more than a career for you.

Steven 00:04:00 This is the only role I've done a second time. I, like I said, I did a lot of things in my first career at another company and I fell into reverse logistics, as we call it at that company. But I sought it out here at Google because I knew we were starting consumer hardware business and I knew what it could be and I knew how important it was. And that's just evolved for me. And as we get deeper into this experience and seeing how important it has become from a, in terms of right to repair legislation, we're doing a lot of active work there. It's no longer a job. It becomes a mission. You just realize there's so much value that you can connect for people and that it's really important. People, people really care about repair. It's when you fix something, you connect with it.

Steven 00:04:41 You know, I'd like to talk about, I have this Timex watch that I don't even remember where I bought it. I think it's Pittsburgh, which means it's probably at least 20 something years old. The battery died a couple years and I thought, okay, I'll just, I'll buy a new one. And I stopped myself and thought why this works. And so I went to a store and repaired the battery and a year and a half later when the watch band broke, I went into a jeweler who had plastic watch bands in this drawer. And it got me that way and I just kept doing it and doing it. And I am so connected to this device because it's this idea of reuse and reuse, which makes you feel good from a sustainability point of view as well. You're, you're acknowledging these things work and you're putting some care into it and that it connects you with, so

Rachid 00:05:20 Google is on a mission to repairability. What can you tell us about the approach Google has to that topic?

Steven 00:05:27 It started at the origins of the business and it was really a mix of necessity and intention. So from a repair point of view, we had to figure out how we we're, we know we're gonna launch smartphones, other devices, how are we gonna repair them? It was pretty common back then and still is for manufacturers to want to do repair where they are manufactured. Mm-Hmm. And so to send them back to Asia to get them repaired and send them back, and that never made sense to us. I always envision a bunch of phones, on an airplane, strapped in with seat belts across them, flying back and forth across the Pacific. And you know, you're wondering why would you do this? This is, from a sustainability point of view, it's a horrible story. Yeah, I understand some cost impact, but I genuinely believe that doing things locally is you can make that work cost-effectively and it's a better experience.

Steven 00:06:15 And so that's really what we sought out to build. We wanted to do as much in person, but we didn't have a network and don't have an extensive network of retail stores. We were just starting with Google stores and, and their great experience where we can really optimize repair that didn't exist. So we had to work closely with partners to find walk-in center partners, like where customers can go in. And so that's how we started to build it. And that of course meant if you're going to work with third parties that maybe don't know your devices as intimately as you do in terms of the design, that means you just have to focus on making them as repairable as possible.

Rachid 00:06:52 And that's for walk-in centers, but then recently it's also been made possible to repair your phone yourself. Like me as a consumer, yes, I'm probably handy enough I could do that. So that probably requires another set of partners to make that possible.

Steven 00:07:06 It does. We work closely with a company called iFixit that is doing some great work globally to enable distribution of the spare parts you need. And let's, let's be honest, most repairs are really about the display. What you're trying to solve for is people that accidentally drop their phone or break the display and, but certainly we, we have the full range of what you need to repair, but iFixit does a great job of distributing those parts to the tools you need for them and the manuals to do it yourself first to small independent repair providers and they do it globally for us, where we sell Pixel phones,

Rachid 00:07:40 Then of course, I suppose you need to talk to the product teams and ensuring that our devices are actually repairable, that someone could take off a screen and then put a new one in, you know, in a way that's accessible for mere mortals. I guess, do you need to convince the product teams that it is important to make that possible?

Steven 00:07:59 It's a really important discussion and that's, you, you're definitely hitting on it, that's the core of it is that partnership with the product teams. I've really been impressed since the beginning of just how responsive and how collaborative the product teams are. They really want to create a great experience around this. And for us, I think one of the major turning points in really deepening that relationship was, uh, I think it was a Pixel 3 had a lot of adhesive keeping it together, you know, right. Engineers love glue, repair technicians, hate glue . And so I remember going to our repair depot in Japan, and they had just outlined this process really effectively of how to take apart this device. And they had done it by station. There was just one station that all they did was take out all of the glue and scrape it out of there.

Steven 00:08:48 And I don't know if you've had this experience of art class when you were a kid and you'd play around with the rubber cement and you'd make these massive rubber cement glue balls. That's what it looked like. And it was sitting there on the desk and I took a picture of it and brought it back to the head of engineering and, and he looked at me, he said, maybe we should go visit your repair facility. So we all went to Dallas, to the repair facility there, walked the line to show how it was really challenging there and come up with ideas on how to improve it just iteratively with each new product. Uh, we continue to improve it. We measure it by something called a design for serviceability scorecard. And we watch those scores continue to go up and we'd evaluate them and together and look at ways that we can continue to improve, uh, the repairability of the product. So it's really been a great partnership with the product teams.

Rachid 00:09:33 Steven, you've had a long career in consumer electronics. Would it be fair to say that at some point in the past they were sort of easier to repair, then it became harder and harder and harder and now it's becoming easier again?

Steven 00:09:44 That's interesting. Um hmm. Sometimes I think that depends a little bit on the category. It's, a lot of my experience prior to Google was around laptops and it used to be really easy. It was mostly with laptops back then. It was really the hard drive. You just had to replace it. You could mail to a customer, you could mail a screwdriver and a hard drive. And if there are three or four screws in the back of the device, that can easily replace it. Now engineers also really loves screws and fasteners, and so sometimes that would, uh, turn into 20 screws and all different sizes. And so we had to reel that in again, smartphones. Yeah, obviously it's a much smaller footprint, it's a much more challenging repair to do. And as the technology gets more advanced, you're cramming so much capability in this tiny little rectangle. And so you're trying to figure out how do I get it in the first place? And that then ultimately if it does break, how am I gonna replace it all again? So I honestly, I think the challenge has really just grown over the years, uh, especially as the technology advances that you're just, you're dealing with tiny little spaces and you're really optimizing for that and figuring out how are you going to replace each of the components inside it.

Rachid 00:10:53 Of course, I have to ask you about what is known as the Right to Repair movement. What are Google's views on it?

Steven 00:10:59 You know, for me personally, it just an incredibly rewarding experience. About maybe six months ago or so, we looked at how we could really engage more deeply in it. There had been a few bills passed in the US: New York, California and Minnesota. They were good. They talked about, okay, you gotta make parts, tools, and manuals available for customers to do repair. But there were still a lot of significant loopholes. And we, and we saw that the state of Oregon was really tackling some of those loopholes and we wanted to partner with them. And so our internal government affairs team team, I really didn't know much about, reached out and said, would you be willing to have some discussions in Oregon with the legislators to talk about some of these challenges? We went to these legislators in Oregon and they were all willing to talk to us in 15 minute meetings.

Steven 00:11:43 We would have to explain to them the whole repair experience and some challenges around what we felt was a really difficult part of it. Something called parts pairing. And we were saying how you had to really make sure that this legislation was addressing that they were open, they were asking great questions and we were able to work with them. And the bill passed House and Senate bipartisan and pretty significant margins. And the governor signed it a few weeks ago. So we were really excited about this bill and we believe it's a model for the rest of the country. And we're now working Colorado where they're very close to passing one as well. And our hope is that these bills will continue to pass. And you may wonder, okay, why are we, I had this question a lot from some of the legislators where they said, you're not just going along with it, you're actively lobbying for this why.

Steven 00:12:28 And it just, these bills were so tied, so closely tied to Google's mission, the mission of making information useful and accessible to customers. That's what we're trying to do with repair, to make it useful and accessible. We want everyone to be able to do repairs, we want them to have that experience. We wanna make it open to them so that they can, if that's what they want to do, or if they want to just walk into, walk-in centers, wherever. That's really important to us. And so that's what Right to Repair is doing. It's just trying to guarantee that right to accessibility of the repair experience. And it's so aligned perfectly with our mission. We felt it was an opportunity to really get in front of it and drive something that we believe is really good for consumers and, and for the environment from a sustainability point of view as well.

Rachid 00:13:11 And just to be sure for the listeners outside of the US and we have quite some, they might understand what the Right to Repair movement is, but maybe not so much what the Right to Repair Bill is. So what does that bill maybe tell, uh, manufacturers to do or not to do?

Steven 00:13:25 You know, it's interesting, a little bit of background on Right to Repair. It started with John Deere tractors and the idea was they were these software locks on these John Deere tractors where now farmers couldn't repair their tractors because they didn't have software codes to get in there. And that was by design of what John Deere was doing. I have a great deal of respect for farmers because they do everything. They're meteorologists, they're horticulturalists, they're mechanics, they're veterinarians, and if you can't fix your tractor, you've really got a problem. So that concept eventually moved to the auto industry and they tackled it as well. Now you can go pretty much anywhere you want to get your car repaired. That has now extended into smartphones and it, it's in the principles are the same. The idea is don't block me out of being able to do a repair by myself or to go to someone, an independent repair provider if that's what I wanna do. So that means you need to make the spare parts available that I need. You need to make the manuals and instruction guides that I need and you need to make the tools, whatever tools you require to be able to repair these. If they're unique or special, you need to make those available as well. So that's the core of it. And then when you combine those pieces with this idea of also don't lock this out by software,

Rachid 00:14:40 You mentioned parts pairing. Could you explain what that is and why that is a problem?

Steven 00:14:45 Yes, and this was the core of not just the Oregon bill but also in Colorado. So I've had the opportunity to explain this hundreds and hundreds of times. The idea here is if you drop your phone and the screen breaks when you're replacing it, there are components in there that need to take this old body of your phone and this new face of your phone and they have to be introduced to each other. That's usually through software tools. So the idea of parts pairing is if you don't make that tool accessible to customers, now you've just retained control of repair and you're saying, Hey customer, you have to go through me because I have to be the one to enable that. At Google, we ran into this a couple of iterations ago, I believe it was the Pixel 6, where it was the fingerprint sensor technology in the display that we, we had this problem where that tool was only in the factory, this software tool that had to introduce that new face to the body of the device.

Steven 00:15:45 And we said, wait a minute, we have walk-in centers everywhere and there's no way that we can make this work if this tool only exists in the factory. And again, because we had a really good partnership with the product teams, when we brought it to them and explained it, they got it and they realized, oh wow, we can't do this. So they designed a tool to make this parts pairing tool available to customers on a website, which you can find in when you're searching for any of our repair capabilities online. And so now you simply connected once the software tool introduces that new face to that body and then you're done and making that accessible. We were shocked at the reaction from the market. That's where we really knew how important repairability was. 'cause in these tear down videos that are done on, on YouTube and other providers, they would point out that we had this tool available and they said, wow, Google gets it.

Steven 00:16:36 This is the first time we've seen something like this. And even better where the comments list, it was amazing to see all these comments clearly from independent repairs saying, oh, thank you. This is really simplifying our work. We wish other manufacturers would do this. Not only do they not, some of them do not do that, but they also, again, prevent you. They create software tools that require you to go through them. So that's parts pairing. And again, that's why we believe it's antithetical to the Right to Repair. You can't repair, you can't have freedom, access to repair if you're having to go through the manufacturer to get these tools and to have them approve your repair. So we felt that was critical. The Oregon legislators recognized that and really fought for making sure that that was prohibited. And that's something that is in the language of the EU Rachel Repair bill that passed as well and is, is really critical as this rolls out to each member country in the eu, it's really critical for all of them to see the importance of if you have parts pairing allowed, if you allow these software tools to be implemented blocking repair, you don't have right to repair

Rachid 00:17:40 Steven. I can't really figure out why any manufacturer would be in favor of parts pairing except maybe for the bottom line. That's the only reason I could think of.

Steven 00:17:49 Yeah, spot on. Definitely. That's, that's the key piece for these manufacturers that deal with this. You know, if your sole business is producing these hardware devices, then you have to think about, okay, what are the different financial aspects? And, there's a, there's a lot of money and repair, a lot of money to be made in terms of providing those repairs to customers. And there's a desire then to potentially say, we want to control that. We wanna control that experience, we wanna control the financial flow of that. So that definitely can be a motivator. And I think that's what you see across industries of companies that say, Hey, this is way too important to our bottom line and to our finances to let go of such a massive ecosystem and we're not gonna do it and we're gonna find many different ways to avoid doing it and complying with legislation out there.

Steven 00:18:37 You know, again, for us, for Google, it's just, it's that idea of accessibility, of making repair accessible. It's great when you have a mission statement that's so clear, so actionable that I don't know how you can, how for us especially, I don't know how you can even think about it the other way. It's just a very clear mission statement. The idea of making repair accessible means I should not be hovering over your shoulder looking at who's doing this repair and taking the money from that repair experience as well. I should be able to allow you, you bought the device, you have the right to repair it.

Rachid 00:19:12 You mentioned the word sustainability a couple of times now. How does repair fit in Google's commitment to environmental responsibility and sustainability?

Steven 00:19:22 Yeah, this was another turning point where the job became a mission. When I first visited Oregon, we met with, uh, some of the people that had written the bill language and after the meeting, the host for the trip said, Hey, let's walk a couple blocks. I wanna show you a business. And so we walked a few blocks away and there was a company called Free Geek. It was a big, big warehouse building and we walk up to it and, you know, huge space for donations around the side. But then as we got to the front door, we talked with some of the people there. What they were doing was they would take donations. Everybody has the drawer or the cabinet that has all these old devices that are just sitting there in your home. They would take these and they would do what we like to call frankensteining them, putting together parts that work from different devices and then they would provide it to communities that didn't have that access.

Steven 00:20:14 And again, talk about noble work. This is, you can't really be successful unless you have access to the internet and access to devices. And so you've got all the goodness of that work being done, which is really based on the idea of repair, which is reuse, taking all these devices that are otherwise gonna go great, you're recycling, but a lot of it ends up in landfill regardless. Instead you're repurposing them, they work, they can find a new home, somebody can use them, and how great in these companies like a free geek that are enabling that to communities that don't have that access. So that just again made it, it just elevated the work we do from job to mission.

Rachid 00:20:57 Last October we announced seven years of support for Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. I think many people focused on the software side of things, right? Mm-Hmm. And maybe it's a bit overlooked that adds also support for hardware and repairability, which on one hand seems great. I can also imagine for you it might sound like a nightmare trying to sort of support these devices well into 2030. Or is that something that actually excites you? Yeah,

Steven 00:21:21 Plus one that, uh, both those statements, it excites me and, and also it's, it is nightmarish. Yeah. Within our repair team, with our, within our reverse logistics team, there's a planning team and I'm always just mesmerized by their ability. A lot of times you're having to buy these spare parts very shortly after the device is sold because manufacturing lines move on to the next product. They shut down and they're doing new things. So really shortly after on sale dates, you're having to predict what you're going to need. So now imagine the challenge for this planning team to say, okay, we gotta support seven years. I have to know that this many people in year five, six, and seven are going to drop their phones and need a new display. Right? It's incredibly challenging and planning is always an exercise of you're not gonna get the number right, but try to really minimize the wrongness of it. And so it, they do amazing work and it's really incredible to see because again, you don't wanna overbuy and create a lot of waste and you don't wanna underbuy and create a lot of bad experience for your customers that can't get that repair. So I'm really proud of the work that the team does on that and how challenging it's

Rachid 00:22:30 So practically speaking, let's say I'm a consumer and I sadly drop my Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, the screen is now cracked. What is my best course of action? What, what are the options? I have to get a working screen again.

Steven 00:22:41 Sure. What's really great about this journey we've been on now is you have many options. You can go into a walk-in center near you and we have a major partner in the US you break if fix that has over 700 locations and they do some great work there. But we do this as well globally. We have partners throughout Europe and Japan as well. Really where we sell Pixel devices. You can go into a walk-in center and get that repair right there often same day. They just replace the display while you wait. That's an option. If that doesn't work for you and time is not as critical, you can mail it in to us. We have central repair facilities where we're able to repair it and then return it to you. And even now, if you wanted to do that yourself, you can work with our partner, a global partner, iFixit, that will send you the display, the tools you need to fix it and there are instruction manuals and give you the opportunity to do it yourself as well. So you have a wide range of repair options.

Rachid 00:23:39 I'll confess that I can about screwing a light bulb . Should I then think about replacing my screen or is is it a little bit harder than that?

Steven 00:23:46 It's a little bit harder. I think we want to make the experience available for do it yourselfers and our vision. We want to get into a world where, you know, we talk about fixtureless repairs, fixtures are the tools you need to repair them. We wanna get to a point where you can reach into a kitchen drawer and be able to replace your screen. And we're working towards that. We're making some good strides as the product teams will tell you, there are always trade-offs. You're also looking at how you're designing the product and you're just balancing that with how repairable can we make it to get to that point. But we continue that conflict tension between those two ideals is really what moves us all forward is just having those discussions and seeing where we can gain ground and continue to improve.

Rachid 00:24:24 Steven, we love to ask our guests a top tip for our listeners. Yeah. Something they should definitely do that's related to something that you work on. So what's one tip that our listeners should take away from our conversation?

Steven 00:24:36 I think it's, it's the one that has really resonated with me through this journey and I talk about that experience with that partner Free Geek in Portland. But there are many of those certainly in the US and certainly globally as well, that will take devices and repair them and donate them to communities that really need that access. I'd encourage you open those drawers, open the cabinets where those devices are, we all have them, and really ask yourself, why is that there and what can I do with it instead to really create a better experience for someone else and, and find some of these nonprofits that do this. There's a great overall organization called digit digit.org. I believe you'll find them there and they do this work and organize it throughout the us. I know there are similar types of partners, uh, globally as well, but connecting people with devices is so critical to ensuring that everyone has opportunity and you, you really have to have that type of access to devices, to internet connectivity. In order to do that. It's easy. You know, you have those devices, you know they're sitting in the drawer. It's very easy. Bring them to one of these great, great organizations that's doing a lot of good. And that would be my tip for your listeners.

Rachid 00:25:48 Steven, thank you so much for driving this mission and thanks for joining the Made by Google Podcast.

Steven 00:25:53 Thank you so much for this Rachid. I really appreciate it.

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