
Hugo Barra is joining Facebook to lead virtual reality - hurrycane
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103456684228891&set=a.529237706231.2034669.4&type=3&theater
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Tepix
It's interesting that he's joining Facebook, not Oculus. Oculus is just a
"team" now.

~~~
rhaps0dy
So what if they're "just" a team now?

~~~
intoverflow2
Working on progressing VR is far more interesting than working on progressing
Facebook (via VR).

And before anyone points out Facebook is interesting to work on because of the
sheer size of the userbase the same argument could be said for working on
McDonalds, Pepsi or any other low grade mass consumption product that's bad
for you.

~~~
pdog
_> low grade mass consumption product that's bad for you_

Millions of people use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family.
It's the platform that has powered _trillions_ of meaningful social
connections over the years. It's not junk food or sugar water.

~~~
crpatino
Yes it is! It replaced hundreds of billios of meaningful social connections
with trillions of shallow connections that most people would be better off
keeping at arms length. Not that there's anything wrong with staying in touch
with your highschool buddies, but seriously, do you need to laugh at every
joke and fawn at every selfie they post?

There's a good reason why friendships would either grow stronger or grow
appart over the years. It is called Dumbar Number.

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blazespin
" I look forward to building the future of immersive technology with Mark
Zuckerberg, Brendan Trexler Iribe, Mike Schroepfer, and the visionaries in the
Oculus team". Ouch!

~~~
Roritharr
I wouldn't take Palmer for a guy that's hurt by this. He became richer than
his wildest dreams and doesn't have to take shit from anybody.

He's probably too busy trying to develop a healthy lifestyle that helps him
keep the friends he wants to care for some corporate politics like this to
register. Let them take the attention, he'll find another venue for his
engineering itches.

~~~
cr0sh
> ...he'll find another venue for his engineering itches.

Will he?

I followed Palmer for a couple of years (on MTSB3D forums) before the
kickstarter; it was his passion and dedication for hacking old/vintage HMDs
that got me interested, and ultimately led me to supporting the KS.

He showed the kind of interest and dedication in DIY VR that I hadn't seen
since the mid-1990s (and I only knew of one other individual at that time with
the same kind of interest - DIY VR, heck VR in general outside of a few niche
areas - was really dead).

DIY VR -was- his "engineering itch".

Sure - he got rich beyond his wildest dreams, but I don't think (or maybe I
don't want to believe?) that was his endgame. From what I could see then, the
endgame was to make VR something again - to make it "take off", to get it back
to where it was (the hype?) in the 1990s. I'm not even sure if he wanted it
commercialized - just more popular, and more people hacking on it. I think -
or want to believe, maybe - that had the only thing that came out of the KS
had been the DK1, that Palmer would be happy to have done only that. I don't
think he ever intended it to become what it has, but I don't know him - maybe
he did. From my perspective, which is skewed for a number of reasons (most of
all because I don't know him personally), he never intended for it to explode
like it has.

Personally, it surprised me greatly that it did. What I couldn't understand
then (nor even now) is why there was an apparent pent-up demand for an HMD for
the PC and gaming, yet virtually no one (outside of Palmer and one or two
others) was hacking on HMDs? In the 1990s, there was a fairly vibrant DIY VR
culture - a few well known books, an unfortunately short-lived magazine (PCVR)
- but there were more than a handful of people hacking their own systems
together, sharing stuff on the nascent internet and BBS's.

...then, it died off. But apparently there was still demand for it, but it
seemed like nobody wanted to DIY their own systems, until after the Rift was
announced. It isn't like there wasn't any information on the internet to get
people started, plus the whole "maker movement" was strong. The software was
all available to play with (game engines, 3d tools, etc). Yet - there wasn't
any DIY movement. Until the Rift.

Strangely, though, the DIY VR movement is still fairly small; bigger than it
was in 2012 and before, certainly - but it still seems like a lot of people
don't want to DIY their own VR rig - most seems to only want to be consumers
of the devices, not hackers/innovators - which is a bit strange to me.

Total tangent there - my apologies. As far as Palmer is concerned - well, I
hope he continues with hacking VR - but I worry that the FB acquisition and
the Oculus brand may dash that. I worry that he may have inadvertently killed
the one thing he cared most about - hacking VR as his personal hobby - by
making it big. I hope not, but I do wonder.

I'm not Palmer, but I know if I had the stark choice of choosing between being
super-wealthy vs being able to freely work on and happily pursue my hobbies, I
think I would ultimately kick myself if I chose the former.

~~~
Roritharr
If he can keep his emotions under control, he could just go on working on DIY
HMDs, just having kicked off a whole chain of economy of scale improvements
while having the ressources to buy what ever he desires to make it better. He
doesn't have to think about BOM for his personal headset. 2 4K Screens? Sure,
just get the ones from Sony's Xperia 5 Premium. Display Drivers?

He can pay for the right chips & people...

I just wonder where his non-compete clause starts and ends.

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owenwil
Smart hire - Barra is a great hardware evangelist, quite technical and was a
great personality for Xiaomi that wasn't a typical "technical" person so could
appeal to the masses. Oculus/FB really needs that.

------
hueving
Can someone provide some context as to who this is and why it's newsworthy?

~~~
nl
Hugo Barra was previously a VP of product development in Google's Android
division. He moved to Xiaomi a few years ago, and oversaw their international
expansion. That was seen as a pretty big move, since it was probably the most
significant poaching of a non-Chinese executive from US tech company by a
Chinese tech company.

His resignation from Xiaomi was announced a few days ago - presumably in order
to move to this role.

~~~
hueving
I see, so is there something significant about this move to Facebook? Or is it
just more about the fact that he left Xiaomi?

~~~
otalp
Both. It's not often that a former VP of Google ends up at Facebook.

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i000
Sooo... I'm guessing this fits into what Brendan Iribe was talking about in
his recent blog post, when he mentioned that the company wanted to "accelerate
[their] roadmap"? From what others have mentioned it sounds like Hugo Barra is
good at rapidly growing software and hardware platforms. That could
potentially work well for Oculus and VR as a whole.

Hopefully for us ground-level users it means even more resources put into
content development. Possibly new hardware revisions releasing earlier than
had previously been planned as well?

I must admit I'm also hoping that any knowledge he has of the Chinese
manufacturing industry contributes to smoother supply chains for Oculus
products. No more parts shortages or shipping delays, pretty please. :)

------
general_ai
So much for "hard work was affecting my health".

~~~
seanmcdirmid
More like Beijing air pollution was affecting his health. That was my reason
as well, moving from Microsoft in Beijing to YC Research in LA.

~~~
raverbashing
And Chinese idiosyncrasies, and Chinese food, and the emotional stress of
being far from family and friends

(I'm not saying the pollution is not a factor, but it's probably not the main
one)

~~~
bostand
What's wrong with Chinese food?

~~~
hueving
It's not the food he grew up with? Most immigrants want the food they are used
to from home when it comes to day-to-day eating/dining.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Not many foreigners have problems with Chinese food (the opposite isn't true,
Chinese don't like western food as much). Beijing also does well on western-
style for when you want it. Cooking is more annoying, you have to be extra
careful when grocery shopping due to food quality issues, but variety isn't
much of a problem (well, no western style sausage).

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nullnilvoid
That was quick. He just left Xiaomi several days ago. Good luck to Hugo.

~~~
alvarosevilla95
Most probably he had already signed with Facebook by the time he left Xiaomi.

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praneshp
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Hugo+barra](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Hugo+barra)

~~~
hueving
I'm on this site a lot and don't know who this is. It would help if someone
actually provided context in a comment so readers can understand why this made
it to the front page.

Your response to Google it is juvenile and doesn't add to the discussion.

~~~
whowalrus
I'm on this site a lot, I know who it is and I understand why it made to the
front page. It would help everyone (you included) if you try Google first
whenever someone (or something) you don't know is mentioned in a discussion.
Even if you search for previous mentions of Hugo Barra on Hacker News, you'd
learn that stories mentioning his leaving Xiaomi have made the frontpage in
the last few days [1]. As a person who is on this site a lot, I'm surprised
that you aren't familiar with him.

Let's not even get into what is (or isn't) juvenile at this point.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13461387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13461387)

~~~
hueving
A LMGTFY link is juvenile, full stop. It's not appropriate in any response.
Condescension (which is what links to that site are) does not make a
substantive comment.

If you Google his name, you get an article that he was a VP at Google. Put
bluntly, who cares if a VP at Google and VP at Xiami moved to Facebook?
Explain why this is relevant and not the equivalent of the magazines in
grocery stores discussion who the latest celebrities are sleeping with.

~~~
jemfinch
> Condescension (which is what links to that site are) does not make a
> substantive comment.

Neither does asking a question which is trivially answered by Googling. Why
are you reserving your rage for the person trying to support community norms,
and not for the person helplessly demanding that others explain to him what he
could trivially discover on his own?

> A LMGTFY link is juvenile, full stop. It's not appropriate in any response.

It makes an important point that someone has asked a question beneath the
threshold of questions which contribute positively to the community, and as
such I'm happy that it exists, and happy when it's used. lmgtfy links are an
act of community self-regulation, whether you think they're "douchey" or not,
I'd rather have those links than your pointless screeds in opposition to them.

If you must rage, rage against the person whose time is apparently so much
more valuable than the other members of this site that he demands his
information be spoonfed to him by humans. Rage against the question "Can
someone provide some context as to who this is and why it's newsworthy?" when
substituted for the search query "who is hugo barra", which provides more
information faster.

~~~
hueving
>Neither does asking a question which is trivially answered by Googling.

see my response to owebmaster.

>Why are you reserving your rage for the person trying to support community
norms

It is not a community norm to condescend with instructions on how to use
Google. The downvotes should make that clear.

>when substituted for the search query "who is hugo barra"

see my response to owebmaster.

I'm sorry if you have some personal connection with the guy or there was a
cult of personality thing going with him at your job, but a VP of a company
moving to a different company just isn't really normally newsworthy. That's
why I asked in case I missed something about him changing the entire Facebook
VR direction or something.

~~~
jemfinch
> It is not a community norm to condescend with instructions on how to use
> Google. The downvotes should make that clear.

It isn't now, and that's sad. But there was a time when this community valued
straightforward, direct communication. If that time has passed, it's a loss
for the community, and for you, whether you understand that or not.

~~~
bshimmin
There used to be a thing on usenet, when usenet was still a thing, of people
saying "RTFM" or "RTFF" (the last "F" being FAQ). You still see it a bit on
the web, but not nearly as much. Of course it was rude and condescending and
incredibly unfriendly to newbies, and many people objected to it, but there
were always some people who insisted on doing it, and defending it, because it
was "straightforward, direct communication" (to use your phrase). In real
life, of course, you'd never be so rude to someone - not a friend, not a
stranger, not a customer, not a colleague - but for some reason basic
politeness gets a bit muddled up on the Internet sometimes.

~~~
jemfinch
> There used to be a thing on usenet, when usenet was still a thing, of people
> saying "RTFM" or "RTFF" (the last "F" being FAQ).

I know. And two decades ago, in my youthful inexperience, I was objecting
against it myself
([https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/f_mPLWMO7Bo/nI...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/f_mPLWMO7Bo/nI-
OLxjUOLYJ)).

> You still see it a bit on the web, but not nearly as much. Of course it was
> rude and condescending and incredibly unfriendly to newbies

And it's also the reason I got to where I am today. It was only by being told
directly to "RTFM" that I learned how to _teach myself_ the things I needed to
know, instead of relying on others to spoonfeed me information. I'm not
defending it because it's something I _want_ to do--I'm actually a very nice
person--I'm defending it because it's something that _benefits_ both the
recipient _and_ the community.

> you'd never be so rude to someone - not a friend, not a stranger, not a
> customer, not a colleague - but for some reason basic politeness gets a bit
> muddled up on the Internet sometimes.

My coworkers ask me frequently, "Does X do Y?" and I explain to them, "The
easiest way to answer that question is to read the code, it's here." Or they
ask me how something works and I say, "I don't know, but here's where I'd look
to get that information." LMGTFY links are the online equivalent of those
replies.

Invariably I've found that the people who object to LMGTFY links or "RTFM"
responses or "Look it up" replies or "Try it and see" answers are
fundamentally ruder than the ones who give those replies, because they feel
entitled to a specific kind of remedial assistance and are too lazy to do the
requisite research themselves. I know that's a broad net to cast, and I know
that it catches my younger self far more often than I'd like to admit, but
it's been my experience and I have no data to contradict it.

------
tmsldd
"É nóis mano !"

