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Daily Dose - Major Leaders Leave Android

05.14.2010
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This week Cedric Beust, a Senior Android Software Engineer, and Erick Tseng, the Android Senior Product Manager, left Google to join LinkedIn and Facebook (respectively).  It's surprising that two leaders of the Android team left Google in the same week for social networking jobs, and you've got to wonder what caused them to leave Google?  Was it Google, the money offered by Facebook and LinkedIn, or something else?  Could Google not afford to keep them?  Losing Beust, who was a senior developer, and Tseng, who basically ran Android, could be a huge blow to the development of the OS. You can still expect Froyo (Android 2.2) to be great though; Beust said it should blow people away.

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Comments

Alessandro Santini replied on Fri, 2010/05/14 - 2:34am

Mitch, nobody is irreplaceable. If Cedric and Erick opted for leaving the company, they surely had their own good reasons. This does not prevent Google from attracting bright engineers and possibly guarantee even a brighter future to Android. Why spreading this FUD? Just because Cedric is regularly posting here?

Fabrizio Giudici replied on Fri, 2010/05/14 - 5:02am

I agree with Alessandro, that while great people are fundamental to incept an innovation project, when it has gone to cruise speed and it's managed by a large corporate such as Google, the success is guaranteed by the quality of the whole staff and eventually other things. The same holds for Android, Java, JavaFX and whatever. The fact that many prominent engineers are also prominent bloggers and communicators is a great thing (Oracle, keep this in mind when you decide your communication policies), but yes, nobody is irreplaceable at a certain point.

Slava Imeshev replied on Fri, 2010/05/14 - 2:58pm

Alessandro,

 Why do you think this is FUD? Mitchell's post mostly rises questions. It does not look like FUD.

As for "nobody is irreplaceable", it may be so, but it takes time and money to bring in people of this caliber, get them up to speed and establish working connections with the team. This certainly affects schedule and quite possible can affect the general direction of Android.

Also, to me key people leaving is always a singnal that something is wrong with the organization, for a reason that people don't quit the jobs they love.

Regards,

Slava Imeshev

Alessandro Santini replied on Sat, 2010/05/15 - 3:53am in response to: Slava Imeshev

Slava, thanks for your comment.

Losing Beust, who was a senior developer, and Tseng, who basically ran Android, could be a huge blow to the development of the OS. 

 "hube blow" to me certainly sounds like FUD - we should take the HR, technological and financial power of Google when assessing the consequences of two people leaving for pastures new. Don't you agree?

Fabrizio Giudici replied on Fri, 2010/05/14 - 6:43pm

"Also, to me key people leaving is always a singnal that something is wrong with the organization, for a reason that people don't quit the jobs they love."

Not necessarily. Talented people often like to change - especially creative people probably enjoy more to create new things rather than driving them at cruise speed. Usually when people leave because they don't like something you get it (think of Gosling, for instance).

Slava Imeshev replied on Mon, 2010/05/17 - 2:34pm in response to: Fabrizio Giudici

Talented people often like to change - especially creative people probably enjoy more to create new things rather than driving them at cruise speed.

Well, is it the job of the organization to provide challenge, to keep their people happy? :-)

Regards,

Slava Imeshev

 

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