Facebook Launches Research Lab, Hires Google Executive to Helm It(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Facebook Launches Research Lab, Hires Google Executive to Helm It
http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-launches-research-lab-hires-google-executive-to-helm-it-1460580859
28 comments
Reading the Wired article, after a page I get a huge "HERE'S THE THING ABOUT ADBLOCKERS...." page. Time to scratch that link off the list?
i select the title text on hackernews, right click, "Search google for" and click the top link. wsj copy w/o paywall.
i dont even bother to click wsj links directly anymore. it's just habit to right click and search google instead.
i dont even bother to click wsj links directly anymore. it's just habit to right click and search google instead.
FYI, the Web link by the title does exactly this for you.
yea i always forget about that, because my habit transcends hackernews
Wired has got to go
I wish more stories about executive appointments were promotions instead of just hiring existing execs. I have zero insight on the person referenced in this article, but my professional experience has been full of execs who are not really exceptional and yet will stay in those high-up roles for life, while the lower ranks are full of talent waiting years for some small career advancement.
It's harder to make a news story out of "director promoted to VP" than it is out for "Google VP leaves for Facebook". I think at all of these companies, a large portion of the executive team was promoted from within and has been with the company for many years.
And that snubbed director is going to leave to be VP of another company and the cycle starts all over again.
Executive appointments have always been nepotistic: it's a club that rewards who you know more than what you can accomplish (that's not to say the two are mutually exclusive, however).
Depends on the company. Heavy industry tends to promote in-house.
Someone please just paste the article. I can't even locate a cache version now on Google to bypass subscription. The closest is http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-hires-google-exec-...
Facebook Launches Research Lab, Hires Google Executive to Helm It
Called Building 8, the new group will build new hardware based on Facebook software
[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-NN776_0413fa_J...] Facebook’s new Building 8 research lab will complement the work conducted at the company’s Oculus virtual-reality division. Above, attendees try out Gear VR glasses during the Facebook F8 Developers Conference in San Francisco. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
By DEEPA SEETHARAMAN and JACK NICAS Updated April 13, 2016 7:01 p.m. ET 0 COMMENTS
Facebook Inc. created a research lab to develop hardware products and hired a top Google executive to lead the effort, underlining the social-networking company’s broadening technology ambitions.
The new group, called Building 8, will be led by Regina Dugan, a former Pentagon research chief who joined Alphabet Inc.’s Google in 2012. It will create hardware products that “advance our mission of connecting the world,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Wednesday. Facebook will invest “hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars into this effort over the next few years,” he said.
Building 8 will help launch a 10-year strategic plan outlined by Mr. Zuckerberg at its annual F8 developer conference this week, including advances in artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and extending Internet access to billions of people around the world, Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said in an interview..
In a statement, Dr. Dugan said: “Building 8 is an opportunity to do what I love most. tech infused with a sense of our humanity. Audacious science delivered at scale in products that feel almost magic. A little badass. And beautiful.”
Dr. Dugan received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and was the first woman to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research lab known as Darpa, which she helmed from 2009 to 2012. Later, she joined Motorola, then a division of Google, and helped launch Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects, a research lab for ambitious new products.
“I’m excited to have Regina apply DARPA-style breakthrough development at the intersection of science and products to our mission,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “This method is characterized by aggressive, fixed timelines, extensive use of partnerships with universities, small and large businesses, and clear objectives for shipping products at scale.”
Dr. Dugan’s team at Google is effectively the tech giant’s short-term skunk-works lab, with two-year time limits on many of its projects. That differs from X, an Alphabet unit that works on longer-term bets, such as self-driving cars and delivery drones.
As of last year, Dr. Dugan’s lab at Google had about 100 staff and 1,000 nonemployee subject experts working on various projects, including sensor-embedded clothing, modular smartphones and technology that enables mobile devices to effectively “see” in three dimensions. That 3-D-sensing technology, dubbed Project Tango, is being released in some smartphones this year.
Dr. Dugan is the latest high-level defection from Google to Facebook. Last year, Facebook hired Mary Lou Jepsen, a high-profile executive from Google’s advanced-projects lab, to work on Oculus. Her background is in display technology.
Google on Wednesday thanked Dr. Dugan for her work and said it wished her “the very best.”
At Building 8, which is named for the number of letters in Facebook, Dr. Dugan will build new hardware products that mix the physical and digital worlds, the company said. Mr. Schroepfer said Building 8 will help other Facebook teams on longer-term projects, including its artificial-intelligence research lab and its Oculus virtual-reality division, which recently started shipping its first VR headset.
“It’s going to start small but it’s going to grow,” Mr. Schroepfer said. “We are serious about this being a group that will ship products, not just do research.”
Building 8 will develop products similar to the virtual-reality camera that captures 360-degree video that Facebook unveiled this week, he said. Facebook doesn’t plan to sell that camera. Instead, the company released the designs publicly to encourage other companies and developers to build VR cameras and thus make it easier for people to create VR content, which would be a boon to Facebook’s vision for the technology.
“I think that’s a really good example of the sorts of projects we should be doing a whole heck of a lot more,” he said. “There are things we need to do in the world that you can only really do with hardware, and you’ve got to kind of build them yourself—even if it’s just building the reference design for others.”
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at [email protected] and Jack Nicas at [email protected]
[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-NN776_0413fa_J...] Facebook’s new Building 8 research lab will complement the work conducted at the company’s Oculus virtual-reality division. Above, attendees try out Gear VR glasses during the Facebook F8 Developers Conference in San Francisco. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
By DEEPA SEETHARAMAN and JACK NICAS Updated April 13, 2016 7:01 p.m. ET 0 COMMENTS
Facebook Inc. created a research lab to develop hardware products and hired a top Google executive to lead the effort, underlining the social-networking company’s broadening technology ambitions.
The new group, called Building 8, will be led by Regina Dugan, a former Pentagon research chief who joined Alphabet Inc.’s Google in 2012. It will create hardware products that “advance our mission of connecting the world,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Wednesday. Facebook will invest “hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars into this effort over the next few years,” he said.
Building 8 will help launch a 10-year strategic plan outlined by Mr. Zuckerberg at its annual F8 developer conference this week, including advances in artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and extending Internet access to billions of people around the world, Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said in an interview..
In a statement, Dr. Dugan said: “Building 8 is an opportunity to do what I love most. tech infused with a sense of our humanity. Audacious science delivered at scale in products that feel almost magic. A little badass. And beautiful.”
Dr. Dugan received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and was the first woman to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research lab known as Darpa, which she helmed from 2009 to 2012. Later, she joined Motorola, then a division of Google, and helped launch Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects, a research lab for ambitious new products.
“I’m excited to have Regina apply DARPA-style breakthrough development at the intersection of science and products to our mission,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “This method is characterized by aggressive, fixed timelines, extensive use of partnerships with universities, small and large businesses, and clear objectives for shipping products at scale.”
Dr. Dugan’s team at Google is effectively the tech giant’s short-term skunk-works lab, with two-year time limits on many of its projects. That differs from X, an Alphabet unit that works on longer-term bets, such as self-driving cars and delivery drones.
As of last year, Dr. Dugan’s lab at Google had about 100 staff and 1,000 nonemployee subject experts working on various projects, including sensor-embedded clothing, modular smartphones and technology that enables mobile devices to effectively “see” in three dimensions. That 3-D-sensing technology, dubbed Project Tango, is being released in some smartphones this year.
Dr. Dugan is the latest high-level defection from Google to Facebook. Last year, Facebook hired Mary Lou Jepsen, a high-profile executive from Google’s advanced-projects lab, to work on Oculus. Her background is in display technology.
Google on Wednesday thanked Dr. Dugan for her work and said it wished her “the very best.”
At Building 8, which is named for the number of letters in Facebook, Dr. Dugan will build new hardware products that mix the physical and digital worlds, the company said. Mr. Schroepfer said Building 8 will help other Facebook teams on longer-term projects, including its artificial-intelligence research lab and its Oculus virtual-reality division, which recently started shipping its first VR headset.
“It’s going to start small but it’s going to grow,” Mr. Schroepfer said. “We are serious about this being a group that will ship products, not just do research.”
Building 8 will develop products similar to the virtual-reality camera that captures 360-degree video that Facebook unveiled this week, he said. Facebook doesn’t plan to sell that camera. Instead, the company released the designs publicly to encourage other companies and developers to build VR cameras and thus make it easier for people to create VR content, which would be a boon to Facebook’s vision for the technology.
“I think that’s a really good example of the sorts of projects we should be doing a whole heck of a lot more,” he said. “There are things we need to do in the world that you can only really do with hardware, and you’ve got to kind of build them yourself—even if it’s just building the reference design for others.”
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at [email protected] and Jack Nicas at [email protected]
anybody remembers that country club - Sun Labs - when they lost their own building and took over the first floor of MPK16. This new FB Labs with non-existent building kind of reminded...
This professional executive FB got sounds similar to Marissa - stellar looking record (which Google was happy to part with :) while i couldn't find any real substance. A lot of smooth talks, speeches, articles, etc. about how to do disruptive innovation though. "Advanced Technology and Projects group, a skunkworks-inspired team chartered to deliver breakthrough innovations for the company" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_E._Dugan) in Motorolla and Google ... so what real results are, what "breakthroughs" have been delivered (is it the "electronic tattoo that can be used to authenticate a user instead of a password")? I mean, of course, i'm just out of curiosity as it is FB's money, so who cares.
This professional executive FB got sounds similar to Marissa - stellar looking record (which Google was happy to part with :) while i couldn't find any real substance. A lot of smooth talks, speeches, articles, etc. about how to do disruptive innovation though. "Advanced Technology and Projects group, a skunkworks-inspired team chartered to deliver breakthrough innovations for the company" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_E._Dugan) in Motorolla and Google ... so what real results are, what "breakthroughs" have been delivered (is it the "electronic tattoo that can be used to authenticate a user instead of a password")? I mean, of course, i'm just out of curiosity as it is FB's money, so who cares.
Just flag the article. There will be other outlets carrying the story.
dang can we add a [paywall] to the title?
dang can we add a [paywall] to the title?
https://blog.umur.io/2015/03/02/paywall-bypass-bookmarklet-c...
from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531941
(I use the chrome extension "Wait Google Sent Me" which I installed before I gather from this https://github.com/lakario/wait-google-sent-me it was deleted).
from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531941
(I use the chrome extension "Wait Google Sent Me" which I installed before I gather from this https://github.com/lakario/wait-google-sent-me it was deleted).
This is depressing for two reasons.
1. Google's top level management is boring af. Regina Dugan imho has Steve Jobs level charisma. To see her leave, her in particular, just feels very disappointing.
2. And joining Facebook?!! She might as well have gone and setup a research lab for the Porn industry.
Nothing makes sense anymore :(
1. Google's top level management is boring af. Regina Dugan imho has Steve Jobs level charisma. To see her leave, her in particular, just feels very disappointing.
2. And joining Facebook?!! She might as well have gone and setup a research lab for the Porn industry.
Nothing makes sense anymore :(
This makes perfect sense. Facebook is doing very well right now.
<< Google's top level management is boring af.
Why ? She had a pretty decent role at Google.
Why ? She had a pretty decent role at Google.
I think he's saying the people are boring.
phenomenal hire - regina dugan is fantastic! looking forward to what's next
Hardware products. Hmm. They already have Oculus. What next in social hardware? "Sensor-embedded clothing". Injectable RFID tags?
Do not attempt to remove the loyalty bracelet.
Do not attempt to remove the loyalty bracelet.
Streaming your daily emotions and convert them in reactions.
more like converting them into ad buys
her lab already had a sensor embedded clothing effort called project Jacquard that was partnering with Levi's
Sad they call these things 'Research Labs.' RD&E != Research Labs, it just sounds good in the news media.
I opened the tab in incognito --> paywall.
I clicked through from Google News (https://www.google.com/search?q=google+news+facebook+reserac...) --> suddenly no paywall with a top banner "You are reading a preview of a paid article" (but it's the whole thing).
I clicked through from Google News a second time in a new tab --> paywall again.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here are some free sources:
Ex-Darpa Head Regina Dugan Leaves Google for Facebook http://www.wired.com/2016/04/regina-dugan-leaves-google-for-...
Regina Dugan exits Google to lead Facebook’s Building 8, a new R&D lab http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/13/regina-dugan-exits-google-t...
Facebook hires Google 'moonshot' exec for R&D http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/04/13/facebook-...