Google is building a competitor to Amazon.com, Inc.’s Echo smart speaker, according to a report Thursday from The Information.

Amazon’s Echo, a smart speaker powered by artificial intelligence that is able to answer questions, play music, and control smart devices, has been arguably the biggest surprise hit in the Internet of Things (IoT) space in the last few years, so it’s no surprise that Google would be interested in building a rival.

The report, though, doesn’t only reveal Google’s ambition in the space, but also details the slow decline of the Alphabet, Inc. (previously Google) owned Nest smart device manufacturer and its deteriorating relationship with Google itself.

“Nest asked to be included in a secret Google project to create a competitor to Amazon’s Echo, a voice-controlled personal assistant device,” the report notes. “But the Google executive in charge of the project, which has not been reported on publicly until now, said Nest would not be involved in its development, according to a person with knowledge of the discussion.”

It gets juicer, though, with the claim that Nest’s product portfolio has grown very slowly since its acquisition by Google and its revenues are way below expectations, and the root cause of this is apparently total dysfunction within the company as well as its relationship with Google itself.

Much of this dysfunction is blamed on Nest Chief Executive Officer Tony Fadell, who is described as applying constant pressure on employees to rework features and polish product designs, as well as (there’s no other way to say this) treating employees like crap, for example telling Dropcam Co-founder Greg Duffy (a company Nest had acquired) that he was not even allowed to directly report to Fadell because “you haven’t earned it,” and allegedly saying  “A lot of the [Dropcam] employees were not as good as we’d hoped … [it was] a very small team and unfortunately it wasn’t a very experienced team;” of note most of the former Dropcam employees have now left Nest.

Makes sense

The Echo’s biggest flaw to date has been its inability to do one simple task, and that task is being able to search Google for information.

Google already has the technology to power an Echo rival by way of Google Now, so it makes sense that it could and would build a new device; that said that Nest is not involved in its development is evidence that Alphabet needs to bring in some changes quickly before any value left in Nest is lost, and at the very least needs to undertake a full restructure of the company starting with the termination of Chief Executive Officer Tony Fadell.

The report itself doesn’t say whether Google’s Echo rival will ever come to market, but we’d bet money you’ll see a Nexus smart hub launched by Google before the end of the year.

Image credit: Amazon.