Facebook has hired former Xiaomi and Google exec Hugo Barra as its new virtual reality chief – Recode (Jan 26, 2017)
Earlier this week, Hugo Barra announced that he was leaving Xiaomi, and now the other shoe has dropped – he’ll be taking over as head of VR at Facebook. It looks like that will make him effectively CEO of Oculus, though I wonder whether he’ll also be responsible for some of the less platform-specific stuff Facebook is working on, like taking Facebook’s social experiences into VR (Mark Zuckerberg’s post about the news features a picture of him and Barra – still in China – together in such a VR environment). Facebook certainly wants to have a major stake in the next user interface, and sees that as VR, but also seems realistic about the fact that no one platform – Oculus or otherwise – will have a dominant role there, and so it needs to evolve Facebook for VR in a way that works on lots of different systems. Whether or not Barra will run this broader set of VR activities at Facebook, hiring him is a big coup for the company – he’s a well-known and well-respected name, especially among developers.
via Recode
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