Sonos has had a tumultuous couple of months, all of which come from what was now a rushed app design that led to a terrible experience for many customers and a long, messy process of repairing these conditions. It overshadowed the long-expected launch of the ace-over-ear headphones, though they recently launched the ARC Ultra Soundbar’s impressive specifications shone through.
Recently, CEO left Patrick Spence, and a new leadership began. Earlier this week, it was announced that Sonos would reduce its total number of employees and dismiss 200 employees. The new temporary CEO Tom Conrad still sheds a little more light on the internal changes – and much of it can be read in a way that returns to form.
While Conrad is quick to repeat that much more work needs to be done, he looks back almost in a good way. “I return to Sonos to a Scrappier and more focused company,” said Conrad, who has focused on changing how Sonos works. “I have reorganized our product and engineering staff for functional teams for hardware, software, design, quality and operation and away from dedicated business units set aside for individual product categories. This allows us to gather rightscross -functional projects that maximize our efficiency when we continuously evaluate, prioritize and focus on the market opportunities for the highest value, ”Conrad explained.
It is a re-do on a previous structure that clearly did not work in a fluid way, especially with people who mostly just work on individual parts of the business. Much maybe just the app or maybe even more segments that didn’t come together to improve the entire ecosystem Sonos. It was probably a miss and we saw some of the potential results coming for execution, but Conrad and the teams left on Sonos have now been reorganized to better look at the brand as a whole.
For example, the app is probably no longer silent, with a team that is focused exclusively on it; Rather, it can be more integrated across the entire lineup. How can the app better work with ARC Ultra, while improving interoperability with future products or creating a new power that helps you to group existing, connected products when new ones are introduced?
Conrad described the setup at Sonos as layered with layoffs, which probably made it difficult to work across departments and therefore across product lines. Similarly, focusing on “improving the Sonos experience to a place that exceeds the expectations of all our customers,” he ensures that the company operates in a way of hitting this or at least putting it up with that hope.
Similarly, Conrad also said that even with the almost constant app updates and other changes, “our core experience still needs significant improvement.” And it should certainly bring some hope to Sonos customers, many years of and future. That a disaster at the level of the app does not occur again.
As for whatever may be next, our CEO of Home Entertainment, Matthew Bolton, gave his expert analysis on the rumor streaming box.
And you can see the full transcription of Sonos Quarter one of 2025 earnings calls here.
