Hot in Silicon Valley: Nest's big hire

Nest, the maker of connected home devices, has hired back Yoky Matsuoka, who previously the company's VP of technology from 2010 to 2015, as Bloomberg reported and Matsuoka confirmed on LinkedIn.

She's an accomplished robotics expert and helped found GoogleX, the Alphabet's experimental division. Matsuoka recently left Apple, where she worked on health-related projects, after only six months.

Why now? Her arrival at Nest is some sorely-needed good news for the company.

• Nest made headlines in early 2014 when it sold to Google's parent company for $3.2 billion, but it's had some rough times since then.
• Last year, co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell (also known as the "father of the iPod") left the company after scathing reports exposed staff frustrations with his management style.
• Nest's development and release of new products has also reportedly frustrated its parent company, which has since taken to building its own home connected devices.