

Facebook snags the guy who built Google's Chrome OS - coderdude
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_snags_the_guy_who_built_googles_chrome_os.php

======
brown9-2
The second-to-last paragraph in this article reads like it came straight out
of a Facebook press release:

 _Put these two new people together with Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and
Joe Hewitt, brought to Facebook almost three years ago and Paul Buchheit and
Bret Taylor, the creators of Gmail, Adsense and Friendfeed, acquired just
under one year ago, and what do you get? A monster team with the experience to
create a compelling, fully wrap-around internet experience for hundreds of
millions of users._

Also am I the only one who finds it a little odd that Facebook sends out press
alerts about which engineers it snagged from which companies? I understand why
some people - or at least, some websites - would care, it just all sounds so
silly in the end.

~~~
irrelative
I think this is mostly free publicity to acquire other talent. Engineers like
to work with other good engineers. For instance, I'd love to work with Joe
Hewitt and Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor. Firebug, gmail and tornado.py
(respectively) are great pieces of software produced by very talented
engineers.

------
siglesias
Honestly Google's bifurcation in supporting both Chrome OS and Android was, at
least to me, a perplexing decision, as they seem fundamentally (competing
UI's, similar market) to be incompatible roadmaps.

If touch tablets ends up upending the netbook category, then Chrome OS won't
really have a home. It doesn't have the capability of taking advantage of
advanced hardware, and netbook functionality might be fully accounted for by
Android tablets. Chrome OS was an interesting bet in the direction of
computing (smaller, inexpensive notebooks as the norm for Internet consumption
and light office work), but things might not pan out the way Chrome's founders
had thought.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Steve Ballmer said it quite right: Android was a bet on the technology of the
past (OS, installable apps, etc), and Chrome OS is a bet on the future
(webapps, light clients, etc.)

~~~
kkshin
That was Ray Ozzie, not Ballmer.

~~~
code_duck
Ha, I was just thinking that it sounded extremely insightful by Ballmer
standards...

------
tbgvi
That is a lot of talent, seemingly in stuff that Facebook doesn't really do.
Any ideas on what they're up to over there?

I don't know if the world needs another browser, but maybe Facebook is working
on one?

~~~
josefresco
Reminds me of Google 5 years ago. There's a point in a companies life when
they're hot and smart people are easily lured in by promises of world-changing
work and working with other really smart people. What happens though is they
eventually realize that it's just another job and a room full of really smart
people isn't always the best recipe to create something that changes the world
(and your bank account). Sometimes you need a few great leaders and a team of
dedicated "team players" to really pull off something cool.

I believe Facebook is entering that phase now where they'll have tons of money
to throw at these guys with promises of working on "the next big thing".
Expect these guys to leave after 3-4 years for smaller more progressive
ventures.

~~~
adrianwaj
Picking up some pre-IPO options in a Facebook would also be a nice reason to
become a Facebooker.

Google had 2,668 employees in September 2004, just after it IPO'd, and at the
beginning of 2010 it had about 20,000.

eBay IPO'd in September 1998 with only about 30 employees and revenues of $4.7
million. In 2008 it had about 16,000.

Facebook will definitely IPO at some point, its VCs will demand it, and this
recruit is perhaps more for IPO marketing than anything else. It now claims to
have 1400+ staff.

<http://investor.google.com/corporate/faq.html#employees>
[http://www.swivel.com/workbooks/27740-Google-Number-of-
emplo...](http://www.swivel.com/workbooks/27740-Google-Number-of-employees-
since-founding) <http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet>

------
WesleyJohnson
I'm really curious about the core motivations a devloper like Matt has for
leaving a project like Chrome OS before it's seen through to completion.

To be as gifted as Matt appears to be, you have to have a deep love for what
you do. And with that love, I would hope comes a sense of pride and ownership
in your work. I just couldn't fathom walking away from something like Chrome
OS to work at Facebook.

I imagine Facebook gave him one heck of an offer. But if there is anything
I've learned in the short time I've been a devloper and the even shorter
amount of time I've been reading HN, it's that people who truly love what they
do in this industry don't always go for the gold. And even if he is dirven by
financial gain, I can't imagine he was wanting for much of anything working at
Google, so why the switch?

~~~
pavs
My understanding is that there are few dozens of quality programmer like him
at Google, where he doesn't stand out the same way he would stand out if he
worked in a group with fewer high profile programmer. I don't think on Google
scale there are too many programmers who are indispensable.

Just guessing, of course.

~~~
mkramlich
Exactly. Am I the only one that doesn't see the attraction in becoming
employee #20,000 and having to conform to The Google Way of Doing Things?

Smart people: yes that's nice.

Look good on resume later: sure.

Zillions of employees and a big inherited culture/system and heirarchy with
skads of established products and infrastructure that you parachute into: no
thanks!

~~~
Psyonic
Facebook's not Google-sized... sure, but Facebook's not exactly tiny, either.
I bet his team at Facebook will be at least as big as his Chrome team was at
Google... and I'm sure he'll have to conform to "The Facebook Way of Doing
Things." Honestly, I'm not seeing the difference, other than the pre-IPO
potential.

------
ww520
Not to trivialize the work and pardon my ignorance, but isn't Chrome OS just a
locked-down Linux with a browser running on top of it?

~~~
coderdude
I could be mistaken, but I believe it runs an entirely new windowing system as
well.

Edit: It does indeed run a new windowing system, but details are scant on this
blog entry: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-
ch...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-
os.html)

------
illumin8
With this, and the rumor of Google starting a new Facebook competing service,
is the war between Google->Facebook heating up in the same way that
Google->Apple has?

Why does Google feel the need to dominate every corner of our Internet
experience? Is it because their eventual business model is to wrap ads on all
content everywhere? Facebook's business model is to add every physical item to
the social graph, so I suppose there are natural conflicts there.

~~~
brown9-2
Do you have any further info on that rumor?

This is something distinct from Buzz, Orkut, etc?

------
borisk
Sweet. How long will Facebook be able to delay the IPO to steal/keep the best
talent in the industry?

~~~
zach
Seems like a winning strategy. Facebook is the Peter Pan of Silicon Valley
right now. The "grownups" don't stand a chance -- you can never go back to
being pre-IPO again.

