People want autographs, selfies, a word or two-but the most persistent want money and advice. With that, the panel is over, and Fadell is mobbed as he tries to leave the Grove’s 18th-century manor. What is the one word that people who know you would use to describe you? A new book, The One Device, is lighting up the intertubes with fresh gossip about “the secret history of the iPhone.” And Fadell-both the source and the subject of that gossip-is getting his due as one of the guys most responsible for turning Steve Jobs’ one-device-to-rule-them-all vision into reality. The press is having trouble coming up with superlatives to describe the impact of a device that has sold more than a billion units. It’s almost exactly 10 years since the iPhone was released, and the media buzz is inescapable. Marissa Mayer, the now ex-CEO of Yahoo, and Biz Stone, recently returned to Twitter, are mingling with the other hundred or so invitees.

The guest list is lousy with knights and lesser officers of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. The event is Founders Forum: the ultra exclusive invite-only tech conference.

Tony Fadell is at the Grove, a spectacularly beautiful country estate outside of London.

Gone Viral for ipod instal