Earlier this week Hugo Barra announced his departure from Xiaomi after 3.5-year stint. He said that he will go back to Silicon Valley in February after Chinese New Year. Today Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Hugo Barra will be joining Facebook to lead the company’s virtual reality efforts, including Oculus team.
Since Hugo is in China now, Facebook CEO also posted an image of him and Hugo together in VR.
In a post, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook, said:
I’ve known Hugo for a long time, starting when he helped develop the Android operating system, to the last few years he’s worked at Xiaomi in Beijing bringing innovative devices to millions of people.
Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They’ll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I’m looking forward to having him on our team.
In reply, Hugo Barra said:
Thanks, Mark! I can’t wait to get started in building that future and join the team soon. It’s been a dream of mine to work in virtual reality even back when AR/VR were just figments of science fiction; now we’re taking selfies in virtual worlds 🙂 I learned from Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun that there’s no greater calling in our industry than taking breakthrough tech and making it available to the greatest number of people. Really looking forward to doing just that at Facebook — taking VR mainstream — working with you, Brendan, Schrep Mike Schroepfer, and the Oculus team!