Topic: Hiring
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
Dropcam’s Greg Duffy Joins Apple — The Information (Jan 25, 2017)
Amid the recent drumbeat of departures from Apple (I’ve covered Chris Lattner, but there was also Matt Casebolt who also went to Tesla, Yoky Matsuoka who went back to Nest after just a few months at Apple, Musa Tariq who went to Ford for a big step up in responsibility, and others), this is one going the other way. Greg Duffy was an executive at Dropcam before its acquisition by Google, and is now heading to Apple. This week’s Beyond Devices Podcast (which I host with Aaron Miller) covers this recent spate of departures from Apple and whether it signifies anything. This hire is a good reminder that at a company with 116,000 employees as of the most recent 10-K, there will always be people coming and going, and we shouldn’t read too much into individual moves unless there’s clear evidence that the reasons behind the departures are significant for the company.
via The Information (more on Techmeme)
Alphabet Gets Matsuoka Back as Nest CTO, After Her Stint at Apple – Bloomberg (Jan 23, 2017)
Another departure from Apple who now shows up elsewhere, this time Nest, itself the subject of recent executive departures. Matsuoka has a long history at Google/Alphabet, and was only at Apple for a brief time – it sounds like the role there just wasn’t a good fit, and perhaps Tony Fadell’s departure at Nest reassured her that the sometimes toxic culture there is changing for the better. In and of itself, not an enormously significant departure from Apple, but obviously now part of a recent string of departures, something that’s worth watching for any signs there’s anything more going on than the usual turnover of talented people on the hunt for the next challenge.
via Alphabet Gets Matsuoka Back as Nest CTO, After Her Stint at Apple – Bloomberg
Key Google executive heads to Uber – CNBC (Jan 20, 2017)
We’re not seeing anywhere near the same hysteria over this move from Google to Uber as we saw around Chris Lattner’s recent move from Apple to Tesla. In fairness, Singhal left Google a while back rather than making a direct switch, but the move is in some ways very similar – a senior engineer working on key products at a pure tech company is moving to a car-centric tech company. No-one seems to think Amit Singhal leaving Google is a sign that things are going wrong there, in contrast to the reaction to Lattner’s departure, which just highlights the power of narratives – Lattner’s departure from Apple taps into a powerful present narrative, while Singhal’s doesn’t. A few years back, when there was a cluster of departures from Google in quick succession, this was a story, but not today – that reflects both overall perceptions of these companies, but also the fact that people often do leave in clusters, often for similar reasons, but not always because they’re unhappy. Often, it’s just that they’ve been there for a long time and want a change of scenery or a new challenge. It’s nice to see this hire being seen in a more rational light. Update: as Recode points out, there are actually two hires here from Google, not just one, which just reinforces the point about narratives above.
via Key Google executive heads to Uber – CNBC
Microsoft Veteran Will Help Run Chinese Search Giant Baidu – Bloomberg (Jan 17, 2017)
Qi Lu was very well respected at Microsoft and throughout the industry, and many were sad to see him step down from his role there due to health reasons a few months back. Now, he’s shown up at Baidu, the Chinese search engine, both to run much of the business but also apparently to spearhead a big push into AI. Given Google’s prominent role in pushing the boundaries of AI here in the US, it’s interesting to see its Chinese counterpart so far behind, and it makes sense that it wants to catch up. A single hire at the top (and one who will be very busy with other things) won’t get them there, but it can certainly demonstrate that Baidu is taking this initiative seriously, and help hire more of the best to assist in the work. The fact that he brings both significant US business and technology experience and Chinese nationality to bear on the role will also help bridge some of the gaps that might otherwise exist.
via Microsoft Veteran Will Help Run Chinese Search Giant Baidu – Bloomberg
Chris Lattner Says Opportunity to Work on Tesla’s Ambitious Self-Driving Efforts Was ‘Irresistible’ – Mac Rumors (Jan 17, 2017)
Chris Lattner is the Apple engineer and creator of the Swift programming language who recently left the company to go work at Tesla. His departure was seen as a sign of unhappiness at Apple and therefore played into the overall narrative about Apple’s troubles. However, Chris Lattner has now spoken about his actual reasons for wanting to move to a new role, and as I suspected it was more about wanting a new challenge than any negative feelings towards Apple per se. Given how excited Lattner appears to be about autonomous driving in particular, we might speculate that Apple’s more exploratory investment in that area was less attractive than Tesla’s current rollout of the technology. And it’s also possible that Apple was keener to hire someone with more specific expertise and history in that area than Lattner offered – Apple tends to hire what it considers the best possible person for a new role rather than moving someone internally.
Amazon to Create More Than 100,000 New Jobs across the U.S. over the Next 18 Months – Amazon press release (Jan 12, 2017)
This is just the latest in a series of announcements from major tech companies (not to mention car companies and others) about job creation in the US in the run-up to the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President in a week’s time. It’s worth putting the numbers in context a bit – 100k new jobs in the US in 18 months compares to around 135k new jobs created globally over the last 18 months. 180k US employees at the end of 2016 would be 57% of my estimate of 315k jobs globally, so 100k new US jobs suggests only a slightly higher run rate and ratio of US to global jobs to the past 18 months. As with a lot of the announcements we’ve seen lately, this seems mostly about highlighting existing job creation plans rather than some new direction.
via Amazon – Press Room – Press Release
Facebook’s Hiring Process Hinders Its Effort to Create a Diverse Workforce – Bloomberg (Jan 9, 2017)
Like most big tech companies, Facebook struggles with diversity, but would like to do better. And yet its own internal processes are apparently hindering its efforts here, with existing engineers having too much power to shape hiring of candidates in their own image. This is a known issue at this point, and it’s frustrating that Facebook – with all its innovation – can’t crack it. All this just highlights that all the will in the world can’t trump flawed processes.
via Facebook’s Hiring Process Hinders Its Effort to Create a Diverse Workforce – Bloomberg
Join Our Board: Companies Hotly Pursue New Wave of Women in Tech – The New York Times (Dec 30, 2016)
Board positions are one of the most visible aspects of a company’s commitment to diversity (or lack thereof), and this means competition for women to sit on boards is at an all-time high. That’s a good thing, but it’s still far less common at lower levels in companies to have this kind of commitment to hiring women or other underrepresented groups in tech.
via Join Our Board: Companies Hotly Pursue New Wave of Women in Tech – The New York Times