Just a couple of days after Hugo Barra revealed that he was leaving Xiaomi, his next destination has been confirmed.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that Hugo Barra will be joining Facebook as Vice President of Virtual Reality. Barra will lead all of the company’s virtual reality efforts, including the Oculus team that’s behind the Oculus Rift headset.
Here’s what Zuckerberg had to say about Barra joining the Facebook team:
“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.”
The addition of Hugo Barra is huge for Facebook and Oculus. Barra spent years at Google helping to make Android into what it is today, and then he took some time at Xiaomi to help turn that company into a major player in the smartphone world.
Now Barra is going to Facebook to lead its virtual reality efforts. VR is still in early days and could certainly use some help growing, and Barra seems like a good person to help Facebook do just that.