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Android’s Hugo Barra Departs Google for China’s Xiaomi

101 points by MekaiGS 13y ago

GuiA 13y ago
Are there any China-based HNers willing to give a perspective on the startup situation in large Chinese cities? How friendly is China to entrepreneurs and their ilk? How likely is it that in a few years, it will be common for SV engineers to move to China for better opportunities? I have several friends who have lived/worked in China, and I always hear very conflicted reports. On one hand, that there are plenty of smart, capable people, that the tech industry is booming, that it's well on its way to displace {Silicon Valley|USA|etc.}. On the other hand, I also hear that it's impossible to do business without running into corrupt organizations/officials, that ruthless copying is celebrated more than true innovation, and so on. Would love to hear more takes on the topic.
- marme 13y ago
  China has some serious problems. The government corruption is getting better but the bureaucracy is on another level. Most people resort to bribery because going through the official channels is next to impossible and the bribe ends up being cheaper but it is starting to change. The big problem with chinese entrepreneurs is that they dont understand or like they idea or serial entrepreneurship. To sell or merge with another company is considered for your company to have failed not a successful exit. They dont care about having lots of money but having the power of being the CEO of a major corporation that is listed on some stock exchange, they will do anything to get listed even if they dont need the money and know that the stock will tank as soon as the IPO opens. What ends up happening is there are tons of great small tech companies but no giants because the small companies refuse to merge together to compete with giants like google and microsoft. Only giants like tencent and baidu who have become chinese giants on their own can compete globally. This is the big reason why there are few hardware giants coming out of china, there are tons of small hardware companies like xiaomi that refuse to sell their patents and IP and eventually die taking their tech with them. Xiaomi is extremely popular in china and their phones are quite good for the price, they are serious competition for google, samsung and apple in china.
- Cookingboy 13y ago
  I'm not China-based, but I grew up in China, is now working in Silicon Valley. My father now runs a medium sized tech company in Nanjing and he used to be a high level exec at one of the largest Chinese tech companies. I actually follow the Chinese tech scene relatively closely due to this. What you heard is all true, and those are actually not really conflicting point of views. The situation in China is very unique and cannot be fully explained without going on and on about the culture and its current political/economical climate. A few points to note though: Tech people there are smart, educated, and very, very hard working. However the number one thing they all value is "efficiency", or rather: "the efficiency of getting things done". I've talked to people from Tencent, and one guy laughed at American companies approach of writing good, scalable, maintainable but very often over-engineered code. Over at Tencent they very often do whatever it takes to be first to market, and if needed to be, refactor everything 6 months down the road, and rinse wash repeat. It's the only approach that works for them in a hugely competitive market (also the largest one in the world). Company management wouldn't tolerate coding practices that very often serves no purpose other than to stroke the ego of senior software architects. One may argue the merits of that approach, but if you look at how well services like Weibo, QQ, and Taobao scale (I think Taobao handled the largest E-commerce single-day-ordering in the world last year without having any major problems), it obviously works just as well as the western approach. So an extension to this mentality is that whatever method it takes to get things done is the best and most celebrated method. Even if it includes brutal copying of a competitor's business model, or bribery of a government official, or direct corporate espionage being employed. The Art of War never mentioned any code of business conduct. I have a hypothesis that a hardworking American engineering with a super-competitive dog-eats-dog Wall Street mentality may do very well in China, or even enjoy it, but I would never go there with any sort of idealistic vision of an "utopia". Things happen there happen very fast, and a lot of money flows around very quickly, countless opportunities come and go on a daily basis. It's an amazing place that can make and crush people in the blink of an eye, so in the end, it's really up to what kind of person you are and what kind of lifestyle you want to pursue.
  - kailuowang 13y ago
    As a developer who also grew up in China (Nanjing as well), I second everything you said. It's like the wild wild west there. I would add that connection is more critical to survive there.
- jlees 13y ago
  I'm not based in China, but I went to Shanghai on a trip 2 years ago and we had a long afternoon with Chinese investors and entrepreneurs. My takeaways were that there is a growing investment and entrepreneurial ecosystem, but that the attitude is pretty different. A lot of the companies that investors prefer are pretty much Western ideas re-done for the Chinese market. I learned from doing user studies there on Google that there is a slight cultural pushback on "foreign" products, and so there's a big opportunity just to see what works in America and rethink it with a Chinese spin. I'm not sure how well a Western engineer would do trying to produce a Western style company there. Of course, I got the sense that things were shifting quite quickly and so it may well be different now.
- LiweiZ 13y ago
  It could be a long talk for just an introduction. However, I guess financial market could be a decent analogy. If you have some idea of how financial market really works. Speculators manipulates the market. You can see highs and lows. But in the end, everything will return to what it is supposed to be. Back to China's current situation, I believe it is at the peak of its valuation. Please note, valuation and true value are mostly different. So business people basically talks about money and when they talk about China, they mean the price/valuation. Granted, the current situation could be really good, but always be cautious at the peak. When someone really into product itself which more related to the true value talks about China, price/valuation is way less relevant. In this case, what you see in terms of the product itself is what you can judge yourself. No one can hide anything. Hope my limited English skills delivered a more macro perspective for you.
- deleted 13y ago
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- jagt 13y ago
  Chinese developer here. I've just graduated from university and worked at a startup company a year ago. The thing is that the startup situation here (at least in Shanghai) is actually really good. College students are encouraged to go for their own companies. There're many policies to give benefit for this, like cheap office rent, lower tax rate and many thing else. Investment are relatively easy to get, according to my knowledge. The startup scene (can't find a word to describe this) is also very active. People have these and that kinds of meetups. Many chances of exposure are also available and really accessible, like "Starup Competition" (basically people go there and introduce their products and then most people get a medal), magazine/video exposures are also there. Personally I think it is quite good. The focus starts to move to mobile gaming and mobile apps and such. I just want to say that the environment is quite good. It's not what most people imaging that government and large companies come and harass you everyday. It's just a successful startup is equally hard, as anywhere in the world.
- prewett 13y ago
  Beijing has an active tech startup scene. There are a number of startups, both expat and local. I know of startups doing games, social media, kids books, 3D printing, and advertising. There are a number of meetups, and regular BarCamp Beijing meetings. From what I hear, starting a company takes about 6 months of pain, but once that's over and you are capitalized with 100k RMB, you get a pretty guaranteed Z visa, so once you get started, it goes fairly smoothly. However, my personal feeling is that there are two kinds of opportunity in China. The first is the expat market, also companies wanting to expand to China. This is large enough to be comfortable (at least in Beijing). The second is the larger Chinese market, which is where everyone starts seeing money trees. My opinion is that the "opportunity" in the Chinese market only exists for those who are functionally fluent in Chinese, have a solid grasp of the culture, why people do the things they do, what motivates them. This would mostly be local Chinese, or American-born Chinese (or equivalent) with parents from China or Taiwan. A white expat has a nice market in other expats, but Chinese values and habits and their expression is very different from what white expats' default thinking is. And then, of course, there's the issue that if you upset any apple carts with "disruptive" startups, the owners of the apple carts might exercise some of their guanxi, which means you'd better have some stronger guanxi. You can imagine how good the guanxi-fu of foreigners is.
senthilnayagam 13y ago
Two posts today about google romance, Hugo is leaving as he broke up with his girlfriend a googler And Sergei Brin is romantically involved with a subordinate .
- Cookingboy 13y ago
  I can't comprehend the second part of your sentence :(
  - senthilnayagam 13y ago
    http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-and-23andme-co-founder-anne-wojcicki-have-split/ http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin...
- riobard 13y ago
  The catch is that the girlfriend and the subordinate seems to be the same person.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Even if they are related its not relevant, just low brow gossip.
colmvp 13y ago
"Sources in position to know tell AllThingsD that Barra recently tendered his resignation, but that it came before a recent personal situation related to the end of a romantic relationship he had with another Googler, and is unrelated. That Googler is now seeing the company’s co-founder Sergey Brin. As AllThingsD reported earlier today, Brin has split with his wife, and is in that new relationship." Whoa. Doesn't that seems like weirdly intimate details that really didn't need to be mentioned in a published article?
- deleted 13y ago
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- Uhhrrr 13y ago
  I'm surprised it wasn't the lede.
- AJ007 13y ago
  Links to another AllThingsD article, x2 the ad revenue from the reader.
- untog 13y ago
  I sort of agree, but on the other hand it's definitely relevant in terms of why he might have left Google. Plus, gossip sells.
- danso 13y ago
  In this case, I think the personal details are relevant. The premise of this article raises the question, "Why him? Why resign? Why now?", which, if you're operating completely from the business/professional mindset, leads you to wonder if something is wrong in the Android shop. But if he left because of an uncomfortable personal situation, then that is highly relevant to onlookers, because it removes unwarranted questions about the state of Android at Google.
  - yohui 13y ago
    But didn't the article note that the salacious details were irrelevant immediately after introducing them? And if the suggestion is that perhaps personal issues nevertheless were a factor, then they still could have done without most of that gossipy detail. It's distasteful, no excuses.
jmomo 13y ago
Not to get all anti-Chinese here, because I'm not, but Xiaomi is a big-time GPL and intellectual property/license violator. Not like that's unusual with Chinese companies, but Xiaomi in particular has been publicly called out a number of times on the issue. http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-demands-miui-rom-comply-with-foss-licenses/ http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-demand... If you thought some of Samsung's early Android phones were too close to copying the iPhone, you've seen nothing. Xiaomi phones blatantly rip off design of other manufactures, especially Apple. They are not even coy about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-an-empire-built-by-aping-apple.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-a... As far as the OSS comunity goes, this is probably a career limiting move by Barra right here.
- est 13y ago
  > Xiaomi phones blatantly rip off design of other manufactures, especially Apple Here is the original Xiaomi phone http://imgur.com/a/nWsOW http://imgur.com/a/nWsOW It's iPhone copycat because obviously it has Round CornersⒸ. There are tons of MIUI roms out there available for download, try it yourself and see if you can find iOS there.
  - AJ007 13y ago
    The parent poster links to a story that alleges licensing violations with regards to the Linux kernel. Hardly sounds like a joke to me.
    - est 13y ago
      Yeah that kind of sucks. MIUI copied more CM than AOSP. However, every Xiaomi phone can be rooted freely and you can switch to CM or whatever you want. That's one of its advertised selling point in the M1Plus phone.
    - yareally 13y ago
      It's more than alleged if you're into the Android modding scene. MIUI extensively rips off Cyanogenmod, contributes nothing back to them (including source, not that they have to under Apache 2.0, but they should) and also completely ignores the GPL for things like the kernel for every version of MIUI they release for any phone. Just do a quick search on XDA developers to see what I mean. As already mentioned, their only redeeming quality is their phones are easy to mod, but they ignore licensing obligations and have as long as I can remember.
Roritharr 13y ago
This reads like the beginning a shakespearean drama, filled with betrayal, vows for vengence, unexpected twists... I hope most of it isn't true.
petermcd 13y ago
Xiaomi's founder, Lei Jun, is an experienced Internet entrepreneur, and Xiaomi's management has a number of ex-Google China and ex-Motorola China folks. So, as a tech entrepreneur in Beijing, I see Xiaomi as more international than most Chinese tech companies (and way more of a tech company than any of the Chinese State Owned Enterpriese (SOEs) that operate in the tech sector). It's interesting to me that they hired Mr. Barra away from Google. Perhaps he already had a working relationship with people at Xiaomi? Welcome to Beijing, Hugo!
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Most of the laowai (foreigners) I've known to work for Chinese companies get really good compensation but last only 6 months or so...there is something about a company (Qihoo...) that uses timecards for all their programmers, and expects 6-day work weeks, that is quite dehumanizing. Maybe Xiaomi is different, but just having ex-Google/Moto China talent wouldn't be reassuring to me, especially if management is all Chinese, or worse, he would be the only laowai in the company. The culture issues would just be so huge. Who knows why he chose to come here? This is quite a personal decision.
moca 13y ago
Since Hugo's departure happened right after Nexus 4 price cut, they are very likely related. It is embarrassing + losing money for Google to sell 16GB Nexus 4 at $249 while 16GB iPhone 5 at $649. As the product VP, Hugo did a poor job on Nexus product quality, marketing/sales, and inventory management. Not surprised to see him leaving the ship. NOTE: Nexus 7 2013 recently had GPS and touch problem and required another OS update to fix them. In fact, Nexus phones never had good product quality ever since Nexus One.
- ChrisClark 13y ago
  Well, then why didn't he leave last year? When they cut the price of the Galaxy Nexus by $100 at the same time? It seems that is their plan. Release a phone that doesn't gouge the customer on price, then lower the price a few months before the next release.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  I have no firsthand knowledge of the situation, but from the outside, it looks difficult to call Nexus 7 anything other than a huge success. Nexus 4 is built by LG, and a $249 price looks plausible without losing money. If you can identify one phone that did the most to push carriers to providing reasonably priced month-to-month plans with no overages it would be Nexus 4. There is plenty to criticize about Android branding, OEM relations, and the Nexus program trying to take on too many issues at once, etc. But the products themselves don't seem to be the problem.
- xur17 13y ago
  Do you have an evidence to back this up? They reduced the price on the Galaxy Nexus in a similar fashion last year, so I assumed this was a normal price reduction.
  - moca 13y ago
    As an observer of mobile market, I don't think this is normal price cut. Galaxy Nexus was more reasonably priced, $399 initially, then $349, see http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120987/galaxy-nexus-hspa-unlocked-price-drop-349 http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120987/galaxy-nexus-hspa-.... There is no chance for Google to make any profit on Nexus 4 at $199, if warranty and customer service cost is factored in. If the product is good, price cut to $249/$299 would be reasonable. There is obviously serious issue to justify such aggressive price cut. NOTE: Microsoft wrote off $900M after Surface price cut. Regarding Nexus product quality, it is well known problematic. I never saw any Nexus phone with good camera, battery life, wireless reception. The customer service is problematic at best. These problems existed ever since Nexus One.
KevinEldon 13y ago
This is an interesting story. Barra leaves for Xiaomi. Ok, so that's moderately interesting... anyone who chooses to leave Google for anything else tends to get some kind of news (a tweet or two?) b/c Google is supposedly an amazing place to work. Xiaomi is a Chinese company... plenty of xenophobic, insightful, or whatever comments to cover that topic in this thread. The story sort of hints that Barra's girlfriend was either poached by or traded-up for Sergey Brin (forgive my language, it's terribly sexist... but that little tidbit in the middle of this article is not there by accident and kinda paints that picture). Who knows? I don't... and other than being an interesting HR case study who cares? What's completely missing from this article is how Barra impacted Android? I've seen him at I/O. Ok? So what else? He's a quick riser... must have done something... but what? What's not going to get done w/ Android now that Barra is not at Google? Perhaps that kind of information will be forthcoming. EDIT: Spelling, grammar
- deleted 13y ago
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- yapcguy 13y ago
  Your speculation appears to be on the money as Brin and his wife are living apart... and another Googler is involved. "Brin and Wojcicki, both 40 years old, had been married for six years and have two children. They are not yet legally separated. The possibility of a reconciliation of the pair is unclear, since Brin has become romantically involved with a Google employee, according to sources. This is further complicated by the fact that that employee had also at one point been involved with another Googler."[1] [1] http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-and-23andme-co-founder-anne-wojcicki-have-split/ http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin...
  - spartango 13y ago
    This is some nasty, tabloid-esque "reporting". It shows little respect for Brin or his wife, regardless of what the situation is. I wish we could not promote or spread this kind of rubbish, as it's not healthy at all.
alek_1982 13y ago
here is it from China: xiaomi is a pure e-commerce phone manufactor,it put a very cheap phone to market with highest chips from qualcomm. how it succeed? it has a miui os, it is 10% owned by qualcomm,made them get cheapest and newest chip, and it's pure sales is online, which made it a huge treat to other mobile phone maufactor.
tianshuo 13y ago
I can give some insider perspective on Xiaomi as a Chinese guy(Xiaomi user, but not fanboy). Xiaomi was recently evaluated at ten billion dollars. They are THE HOTTEST series of smartphones that young Chinese people and recently their parents are trying to get. Since 2011, it has brought several competitive phones to market, usually priced 300 dollars, selling millions within minutes online. And the quad-core 4.7 inch RED-MI which was partnered with Tencent sells for about 150 dollars, which is winning over the lower end market in China. It has this beautifully polished MIUI OS, which is much better than the original Android, and most other distributions(there are places better than iOS). At the same price, most Chinese made phones, incl. Lenovo, Huawei, Coolpad, have mediocre hardware and software. Xiaomi is often sold at 10% the price online at Taobao, since you need tremendous luck to buy one online (The first batch of Red-MI was sold in 90 seconds, 7 million users were waiting for it, only 10 thousand got one). So to say, Xiaomi is a company creates pretty good smartphones at a fraction of the of ip5 and S4 that mostly everyone in China wants, while mostly everyone outside China has never heard of it. I guess Hugo Barra would be a boon for the internationalization of Xiaomi smartphones.

101 points by MekaiGS 13y ago

GuiA 13y ago

Are there any China-based HNers willing to give a perspective on the startup situation in large Chinese cities? How friendly is China to entrepreneurs and their ilk? How likely is it that in a few years, it will be common for SV engineers to move to China for better opportunities? I have several friends who have lived/worked in China, and I always hear very conflicted reports. On one hand, that there are plenty of smart, capable people, that the tech industry is booming, that it's well on its way to displace {Silicon Valley|USA|etc.}. On the other hand, I also hear that it's impossible to do business without running into corrupt organizations/officials, that ruthless copying is celebrated more than true innovation, and so on. Would love to hear more takes on the topic.

marme 13y ago
China has some serious problems. The government corruption is getting better but the bureaucracy is on another level. Most people resort to bribery because going through the official channels is next to impossible and the bribe ends up being cheaper but it is starting to change. The big problem with chinese entrepreneurs is that they dont understand or like they idea or serial entrepreneurship. To sell or merge with another company is considered for your company to have failed not a successful exit. They dont care about having lots of money but having the power of being the CEO of a major corporation that is listed on some stock exchange, they will do anything to get listed even if they dont need the money and know that the stock will tank as soon as the IPO opens. What ends up happening is there are tons of great small tech companies but no giants because the small companies refuse to merge together to compete with giants like google and microsoft. Only giants like tencent and baidu who have become chinese giants on their own can compete globally. This is the big reason why there are few hardware giants coming out of china, there are tons of small hardware companies like xiaomi that refuse to sell their patents and IP and eventually die taking their tech with them. Xiaomi is extremely popular in china and their phones are quite good for the price, they are serious competition for google, samsung and apple in china.
Cookingboy 13y ago
I'm not China-based, but I grew up in China, is now working in Silicon Valley. My father now runs a medium sized tech company in Nanjing and he used to be a high level exec at one of the largest Chinese tech companies. I actually follow the Chinese tech scene relatively closely due to this. What you heard is all true, and those are actually not really conflicting point of views. The situation in China is very unique and cannot be fully explained without going on and on about the culture and its current political/economical climate. A few points to note though: Tech people there are smart, educated, and very, very hard working. However the number one thing they all value is "efficiency", or rather: "the efficiency of getting things done". I've talked to people from Tencent, and one guy laughed at American companies approach of writing good, scalable, maintainable but very often over-engineered code. Over at Tencent they very often do whatever it takes to be first to market, and if needed to be, refactor everything 6 months down the road, and rinse wash repeat. It's the only approach that works for them in a hugely competitive market (also the largest one in the world). Company management wouldn't tolerate coding practices that very often serves no purpose other than to stroke the ego of senior software architects. One may argue the merits of that approach, but if you look at how well services like Weibo, QQ, and Taobao scale (I think Taobao handled the largest E-commerce single-day-ordering in the world last year without having any major problems), it obviously works just as well as the western approach. So an extension to this mentality is that whatever method it takes to get things done is the best and most celebrated method. Even if it includes brutal copying of a competitor's business model, or bribery of a government official, or direct corporate espionage being employed. The Art of War never mentioned any code of business conduct. I have a hypothesis that a hardworking American engineering with a super-competitive dog-eats-dog Wall Street mentality may do very well in China, or even enjoy it, but I would never go there with any sort of idealistic vision of an "utopia". Things happen there happen very fast, and a lot of money flows around very quickly, countless opportunities come and go on a daily basis. It's an amazing place that can make and crush people in the blink of an eye, so in the end, it's really up to what kind of person you are and what kind of lifestyle you want to pursue.
- kailuowang 13y ago
  As a developer who also grew up in China (Nanjing as well), I second everything you said. It's like the wild wild west there. I would add that connection is more critical to survive there.
jlees 13y ago
I'm not based in China, but I went to Shanghai on a trip 2 years ago and we had a long afternoon with Chinese investors and entrepreneurs. My takeaways were that there is a growing investment and entrepreneurial ecosystem, but that the attitude is pretty different. A lot of the companies that investors prefer are pretty much Western ideas re-done for the Chinese market. I learned from doing user studies there on Google that there is a slight cultural pushback on "foreign" products, and so there's a big opportunity just to see what works in America and rethink it with a Chinese spin. I'm not sure how well a Western engineer would do trying to produce a Western style company there. Of course, I got the sense that things were shifting quite quickly and so it may well be different now.
LiweiZ 13y ago
It could be a long talk for just an introduction. However, I guess financial market could be a decent analogy. If you have some idea of how financial market really works. Speculators manipulates the market. You can see highs and lows. But in the end, everything will return to what it is supposed to be. Back to China's current situation, I believe it is at the peak of its valuation. Please note, valuation and true value are mostly different. So business people basically talks about money and when they talk about China, they mean the price/valuation. Granted, the current situation could be really good, but always be cautious at the peak. When someone really into product itself which more related to the true value talks about China, price/valuation is way less relevant. In this case, what you see in terms of the product itself is what you can judge yourself. No one can hide anything. Hope my limited English skills delivered a more macro perspective for you.
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jagt 13y ago
Chinese developer here. I've just graduated from university and worked at a startup company a year ago. The thing is that the startup situation here (at least in Shanghai) is actually really good. College students are encouraged to go for their own companies. There're many policies to give benefit for this, like cheap office rent, lower tax rate and many thing else. Investment are relatively easy to get, according to my knowledge. The startup scene (can't find a word to describe this) is also very active. People have these and that kinds of meetups. Many chances of exposure are also available and really accessible, like "Starup Competition" (basically people go there and introduce their products and then most people get a medal), magazine/video exposures are also there. Personally I think it is quite good. The focus starts to move to mobile gaming and mobile apps and such. I just want to say that the environment is quite good. It's not what most people imaging that government and large companies come and harass you everyday. It's just a successful startup is equally hard, as anywhere in the world.
prewett 13y ago
Beijing has an active tech startup scene. There are a number of startups, both expat and local. I know of startups doing games, social media, kids books, 3D printing, and advertising. There are a number of meetups, and regular BarCamp Beijing meetings. From what I hear, starting a company takes about 6 months of pain, but once that's over and you are capitalized with 100k RMB, you get a pretty guaranteed Z visa, so once you get started, it goes fairly smoothly. However, my personal feeling is that there are two kinds of opportunity in China. The first is the expat market, also companies wanting to expand to China. This is large enough to be comfortable (at least in Beijing). The second is the larger Chinese market, which is where everyone starts seeing money trees. My opinion is that the "opportunity" in the Chinese market only exists for those who are functionally fluent in Chinese, have a solid grasp of the culture, why people do the things they do, what motivates them. This would mostly be local Chinese, or American-born Chinese (or equivalent) with parents from China or Taiwan. A white expat has a nice market in other expats, but Chinese values and habits and their expression is very different from what white expats' default thinking is. And then, of course, there's the issue that if you upset any apple carts with "disruptive" startups, the owners of the apple carts might exercise some of their guanxi, which means you'd better have some stronger guanxi. You can imagine how good the guanxi-fu of foreigners is.

senthilnayagam 13y ago

Two posts today about google romance, Hugo is leaving as he broke up with his girlfriend a googler And Sergei Brin is romantically involved with a subordinate .

Cookingboy 13y ago
I can't comprehend the second part of your sentence :(
- senthilnayagam 13y ago
  http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-and-23andme-co-founder-anne-wojcicki-have-split/ http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin...
riobard 13y ago
The catch is that the girlfriend and the subordinate seems to be the same person.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Even if they are related its not relevant, just low brow gossip.

colmvp 13y ago

"Sources in position to know tell AllThingsD that Barra recently tendered his resignation, but that it came before a recent personal situation related to the end of a romantic relationship he had with another Googler, and is unrelated. That Googler is now seeing the company’s co-founder Sergey Brin. As AllThingsD reported earlier today, Brin has split with his wife, and is in that new relationship." Whoa. Doesn't that seems like weirdly intimate details that really didn't need to be mentioned in a published article?

deleted 13y ago
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Uhhrrr 13y ago
I'm surprised it wasn't the lede.
AJ007 13y ago
Links to another AllThingsD article, x2 the ad revenue from the reader.
untog 13y ago
I sort of agree, but on the other hand it's definitely relevant in terms of why he might have left Google. Plus, gossip sells.
danso 13y ago
In this case, I think the personal details are relevant. The premise of this article raises the question, "Why him? Why resign? Why now?", which, if you're operating completely from the business/professional mindset, leads you to wonder if something is wrong in the Android shop. But if he left because of an uncomfortable personal situation, then that is highly relevant to onlookers, because it removes unwarranted questions about the state of Android at Google.
- yohui 13y ago
  But didn't the article note that the salacious details were irrelevant immediately after introducing them? And if the suggestion is that perhaps personal issues nevertheless were a factor, then they still could have done without most of that gossipy detail. It's distasteful, no excuses.

jmomo 13y ago

Not to get all anti-Chinese here, because I'm not, but Xiaomi is a big-time GPL and intellectual property/license violator. Not like that's unusual with Chinese companies, but Xiaomi in particular has been publicly called out a number of times on the issue. http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-demands-miui-rom-comply-with-foss-licenses/ http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-demand... If you thought some of Samsung's early Android phones were too close to copying the iPhone, you've seen nothing. Xiaomi phones blatantly rip off design of other manufactures, especially Apple. They are not even coy about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-an-empire-built-by-aping-apple.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-a... As far as the OSS comunity goes, this is probably a career limiting move by Barra right here.

est 13y ago
> Xiaomi phones blatantly rip off design of other manufactures, especially Apple Here is the original Xiaomi phone http://imgur.com/a/nWsOW http://imgur.com/a/nWsOW It's iPhone copycat because obviously it has Round CornersⒸ. There are tons of MIUI roms out there available for download, try it yourself and see if you can find iOS there.
- AJ007 13y ago
  The parent poster links to a story that alleges licensing violations with regards to the Linux kernel. Hardly sounds like a joke to me.
  - est 13y ago
    Yeah that kind of sucks. MIUI copied more CM than AOSP. However, every Xiaomi phone can be rooted freely and you can switch to CM or whatever you want. That's one of its advertised selling point in the M1Plus phone.
  - yareally 13y ago
    It's more than alleged if you're into the Android modding scene. MIUI extensively rips off Cyanogenmod, contributes nothing back to them (including source, not that they have to under Apache 2.0, but they should) and also completely ignores the GPL for things like the kernel for every version of MIUI they release for any phone. Just do a quick search on XDA developers to see what I mean. As already mentioned, their only redeeming quality is their phones are easy to mod, but they ignore licensing obligations and have as long as I can remember.

Roritharr 13y ago

This reads like the beginning a shakespearean drama, filled with betrayal, vows for vengence, unexpected twists... I hope most of it isn't true.

petermcd 13y ago

Xiaomi's founder, Lei Jun, is an experienced Internet entrepreneur, and Xiaomi's management has a number of ex-Google China and ex-Motorola China folks. So, as a tech entrepreneur in Beijing, I see Xiaomi as more international than most Chinese tech companies (and way more of a tech company than any of the Chinese State Owned Enterpriese (SOEs) that operate in the tech sector). It's interesting to me that they hired Mr. Barra away from Google. Perhaps he already had a working relationship with people at Xiaomi? Welcome to Beijing, Hugo!

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Most of the laowai (foreigners) I've known to work for Chinese companies get really good compensation but last only 6 months or so...there is something about a company (Qihoo...) that uses timecards for all their programmers, and expects 6-day work weeks, that is quite dehumanizing. Maybe Xiaomi is different, but just having ex-Google/Moto China talent wouldn't be reassuring to me, especially if management is all Chinese, or worse, he would be the only laowai in the company. The culture issues would just be so huge. Who knows why he chose to come here? This is quite a personal decision.

moca 13y ago

Since Hugo's departure happened right after Nexus 4 price cut, they are very likely related. It is embarrassing + losing money for Google to sell 16GB Nexus 4 at $249 while 16GB iPhone 5 at $649. As the product VP, Hugo did a poor job on Nexus product quality, marketing/sales, and inventory management. Not surprised to see him leaving the ship. NOTE: Nexus 7 2013 recently had GPS and touch problem and required another OS update to fix them. In fact, Nexus phones never had good product quality ever since Nexus One.

ChrisClark 13y ago
Well, then why didn't he leave last year? When they cut the price of the Galaxy Nexus by $100 at the same time? It seems that is their plan. Release a phone that doesn't gouge the customer on price, then lower the price a few months before the next release.
Zigurd 13y ago
I have no firsthand knowledge of the situation, but from the outside, it looks difficult to call Nexus 7 anything other than a huge success. Nexus 4 is built by LG, and a $249 price looks plausible without losing money. If you can identify one phone that did the most to push carriers to providing reasonably priced month-to-month plans with no overages it would be Nexus 4. There is plenty to criticize about Android branding, OEM relations, and the Nexus program trying to take on too many issues at once, etc. But the products themselves don't seem to be the problem.
xur17 13y ago
Do you have an evidence to back this up? They reduced the price on the Galaxy Nexus in a similar fashion last year, so I assumed this was a normal price reduction.
- moca 13y ago
  As an observer of mobile market, I don't think this is normal price cut. Galaxy Nexus was more reasonably priced, $399 initially, then $349, see http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120987/galaxy-nexus-hspa-unlocked-price-drop-349 http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120987/galaxy-nexus-hspa-.... There is no chance for Google to make any profit on Nexus 4 at $199, if warranty and customer service cost is factored in. If the product is good, price cut to $249/$299 would be reasonable. There is obviously serious issue to justify such aggressive price cut. NOTE: Microsoft wrote off $900M after Surface price cut. Regarding Nexus product quality, it is well known problematic. I never saw any Nexus phone with good camera, battery life, wireless reception. The customer service is problematic at best. These problems existed ever since Nexus One.

KevinEldon 13y ago

This is an interesting story. Barra leaves for Xiaomi. Ok, so that's moderately interesting... anyone who chooses to leave Google for anything else tends to get some kind of news (a tweet or two?) b/c Google is supposedly an amazing place to work. Xiaomi is a Chinese company... plenty of xenophobic, insightful, or whatever comments to cover that topic in this thread. The story sort of hints that Barra's girlfriend was either poached by or traded-up for Sergey Brin (forgive my language, it's terribly sexist... but that little tidbit in the middle of this article is not there by accident and kinda paints that picture). Who knows? I don't... and other than being an interesting HR case study who cares? What's completely missing from this article is how Barra impacted Android? I've seen him at I/O. Ok? So what else? He's a quick riser... must have done something... but what? What's not going to get done w/ Android now that Barra is not at Google? Perhaps that kind of information will be forthcoming. EDIT: Spelling, grammar

deleted 13y ago
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yapcguy 13y ago
Your speculation appears to be on the money as Brin and his wife are living apart... and another Googler is involved. "Brin and Wojcicki, both 40 years old, had been married for six years and have two children. They are not yet legally separated. The possibility of a reconciliation of the pair is unclear, since Brin has become romantically involved with a Google employee, according to sources. This is further complicated by the fact that that employee had also at one point been involved with another Googler."[1] [1] http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-and-23andme-co-founder-anne-wojcicki-have-split/ http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin...
- spartango 13y ago
  This is some nasty, tabloid-esque "reporting". It shows little respect for Brin or his wife, regardless of what the situation is. I wish we could not promote or spread this kind of rubbish, as it's not healthy at all.

alek_1982 13y ago

here is it from China: xiaomi is a pure e-commerce phone manufactor,it put a very cheap phone to market with highest chips from qualcomm. how it succeed? it has a miui os, it is 10% owned by qualcomm,made them get cheapest and newest chip, and it's pure sales is online, which made it a huge treat to other mobile phone maufactor.

tianshuo 13y ago

I can give some insider perspective on Xiaomi as a Chinese guy(Xiaomi user, but not fanboy). Xiaomi was recently evaluated at ten billion dollars. They are THE HOTTEST series of smartphones that young Chinese people and recently their parents are trying to get. Since 2011, it has brought several competitive phones to market, usually priced 300 dollars, selling millions within minutes online. And the quad-core 4.7 inch RED-MI which was partnered with Tencent sells for about 150 dollars, which is winning over the lower end market in China. It has this beautifully polished MIUI OS, which is much better than the original Android, and most other distributions(there are places better than iOS). At the same price, most Chinese made phones, incl. Lenovo, Huawei, Coolpad, have mediocre hardware and software. Xiaomi is often sold at 10% the price online at Taobao, since you need tremendous luck to buy one online (The first batch of Red-MI was sold in 90 seconds, 7 million users were waiting for it, only 10 thousand got one). So to say, Xiaomi is a company creates pretty good smartphones at a fraction of the of ip5 and S4 that mostly everyone in China wants, while mostly everyone outside China has never heard of it. I guess Hugo Barra would be a boon for the internationalization of Xiaomi smartphones.