Today I’m announcing my departure from Google after almost 8 years.
I have been incredibly fortunate to work with the amazing people of Google. I don’t believe there is a more talented and passionate collection of people anywhere else. And I’m overwhelmed when I think about the leadership of Larry Page and what he empowered me to do while at Google. From starting Google I/O, to being responsible for all mobile applications, to creating Google+, none of this would have happened without Larry’s encouragement and support.
Those are the opening words of a post on Google+ by the brains behind the social networking site, the Senior Vice President, Social for Google, Vivek Gundotra.
After eight years at Google during which he started Google I/O and led the team that came up with Google+, the man who publicly proclaims on his Google+ page to have fallen in love with software at an early age may have now fallen in love with something else outside Mountain View.
There’s no word on what Gundotra’s next venture is and seeing as it is that his exit was a well kept secret known only internally until a few hours to the public announcement he made when Re/code released a scoop, it may be a while before we find out.
David Besbris, Google’s VP of Engineering is Gundotra’s replacement.
Gundotra joins Andy Rubin, the former Android co-creator and chief, Hugo Barra the former Vice President for Android Product Management and Jean-Baptiste Quéru, the Android Open Source Project lead who left to pursue other interests. While JBQ and Barra opted to go outside Google by joining Yahoo and Xiaomi respectively, Rubin chose to just leave the virtual green robot and stay on to build real robots.
I/O is coming up in two months time and Google just started notifying those whose applications to attend the developer-centric conference were successful. What a sight it would be for the event to be without its father. Like Android has soldiered on without Rubin and AOSP doing just fine without JBQ, here’s to hoping that Google+ will finally find its footing in social media and keep growing long after its father is gone.
Photo: Reuters
