Earlier this week, Google bought Nest, a connected devices company, for $3.2 billion. This might seem like an ungodly sum for a company that makes thermostats and smoke detectors, but it makes absolute sense. Nest’s products are beautifully designed, their team is overflowing with talent, and they were the first company to figure out what the “Internet of Things” means to consumers and deliver products that people actually want. But using some cheap, easily available components, Spark.io created a open source clone of the Nest. Not to prove that $3.2 billion is far too much for a company selling devices worth about $70 in components. No. Neither that you can build it design and build it in a day. It’s just a prove that everyone can build fantastic applications, but only a few manage to gather a excellent team and organisation. Designing the Nest cost probably only 10% of the company’s time and effect. Managing regulations, suppliers and producers is the hard part.