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Kevin Fox Leaves Google  (View post)

Eugene Foolstak [PersonRank 1]

Friday, January 4, 2008
16 years ago5,254 views

While Kevin's goodbye indicates his relative admiration for the company, I'm sure that the slew of Google engineers and designers that worked on GMail, Calendar, and Reader will be very pleased to see Kevin singularly take credit for the design of their products.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Nathan Stoll, product manager of Google News also leaves!!

http://www.nathanstoll.com/blog/2007/12/breaking-up-with-google-difficult.html

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

OMG lots of high-up people are leaving Google recently

Kevin Fox [PersonRank 4]

16 years ago #

Philipp: Thanks for the thoughtful write-up! Those portrait frame-grabs are great, nd I'm suitably embarrassed by the link to the hokey .Mac video.

Eugene: I don't mean to take credit for anyone else's work. My resume only means to say that as an Interaction Designer I led the the user experience design for Gmail 1.0, Calendar 1.0, and Reader 2.0, and that I was the only interaction designer on those products until well after they launched. This shouldn't be interpreted as saying I 'built' the product, or 'invented' the product (although in the case of Calendar, it began as a 20% project between me and another engineer), but a designer designs.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

just in--

"David Hirsch, an eight-year Google sales vet who helped open the company's New York office, is leaving the company at the end of January."

William Canavan [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Google is filled with very smart and very talented engineers. Many of these people are nearing the end of their initial 4yr grants. Google, for some strange reason, DOES NOT understand how to use stock options and grants as a retention tool and instead lets their superstars fully vest without significant followup. As a result, you have tons of people looking logically at the situation e.g., last year I made $2m, this year I'm back to $150k/yr. Should I stay, or should I look for growth elsewhere... When you are in this mode, It's much smarter to move on/take a risk where an opportunity for reward exists rather than do the same work at Google while taking an 1.85m/yr "pay cut". The people that stay are the ones to worry about. They tend to be risk averse and over time will turn Google into a tech zombie like Microsoft.

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I'm still willing to work at Google for free :P

Andrew Heenan [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

People are making a lot of fuss about Google Leavers, but it's all a bit silly. Most had been at Google for some years ... and many have not left, of course.

Without any knowledge of Google's retention rate compared to others, it's meaningless to focus on a few individuals, all of whom left on good terms.

Trying to apply Paris Hilton style celebrity status to Googlers is a fairly limited exercise.

I wouldn't work for them for free, but I'm very cheap!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Kevin Fox Leaves Google ... and joins FriendFeed!

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008/01/another-new-friendfeeder.html

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Good to see a great bunch of Xooglers working together on FriendFeed.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

...which will inevitably be acquired by Google and incorporated into the next generation of orkut.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Kevin Fox now works at Friendfeed:
http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008/01/another-new-friendfeeder.html

(This news is already some days old, but I just came across it...)

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

>> This news is already some days old...

Yeah, see above... ;-)

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/120068.html#id120274

PierreS [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Calendar 1.0 ? Does that mean a 2.0 is in the works?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

PierreS, I think the current incarnation is Calendar 2.0. IIRC its code name before it was released was CL2. But whether that's the same as Calendar 2.0 I have no idea...

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