I'm really curious about the core motivations a devloper like Matt has for leaving a project like Chrome OS before it's seen through to completion.
To be as gifted as Matt appears to be, you have to have a deep love for what you do. And with that love, I would hope comes a sense of pride and ownership in your work. I just couldn't fathom walking away from something like Chrome OS to work at Facebook.
I imagine Facebook gave him one heck of an offer. But if there is anything I've learned in the short time I've been a devloper and the even shorter amount of time I've been reading HN, it's that people who truly love what they do in this industry don't always go for the gold. And even if he is dirven by financial gain, I can't imagine he was wanting for much of anything working at Google, so why the switch?
Would you rather work for Google post-IPO, where the stock is up and down every year, or would you rather work for Facebook pre-IPO and potentially make $millions?
I think the financial motivation is pretty extreme for a top engineer like this. He can probably retire after Facebook goes public if he wants to.
I'll admit, I hadn't put much thought into exactly lucrative it could be to work for Facebook pre-IPO. You make an excellent point and I've changed my mind: I COULD fathom walking away from something like Chrome OS if it meant that kind of financial security in my future.
My guess is that he's poorly managed. Often developers leave a company because of the poor management or bad company viability/culture/etc. Google seems to have good viability/culture/etc, so it's probably the management.
My understanding is that there are few dozens of quality programmer like him at Google, where he doesn't stand out the same way he would stand out if he worked in a group with fewer high profile programmer. I don't think on Google scale there are too many programmers who are indispensable.
Exactly. Am I the only one that doesn't see the attraction in becoming employee #20,000 and having to conform to The Google Way of Doing Things?
Smart people: yes that's nice.
Look good on resume later: sure.
Zillions of employees and a big inherited culture/system and heirarchy with skads of established products and infrastructure that you parachute into: no thanks!
Facebook's not Google-sized... sure, but Facebook's not exactly tiny, either. I bet his team at Facebook will be at least as big as his Chrome team was at Google... and I'm sure he'll have to conform to "The Facebook Way of Doing Things." Honestly, I'm not seeing the difference, other than the pre-IPO potential.
With the rumors of an official x86 Android port in the works maybe ChromeOS doesn't have much of a future? Their dual-OS strategy always seemed awkward to me.
To be as gifted as Matt appears to be, you have to have a deep love for what you do. And with that love, I would hope comes a sense of pride and ownership in your work. I just couldn't fathom walking away from something like Chrome OS to work at Facebook.
I imagine Facebook gave him one heck of an offer. But if there is anything I've learned in the short time I've been a devloper and the even shorter amount of time I've been reading HN, it's that people who truly love what they do in this industry don't always go for the gold. And even if he is dirven by financial gain, I can't imagine he was wanting for much of anything working at Google, so why the switch?