Facebook steals Advanced Technologies and Projects chief from Google

Regina Dugan was until very recently the captain of Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects group (ATAP). However, Facebook is reporting that they’ve just hired the tech star to steer one of their latest projects, Building 8. Although not much is known about the goals of the Building 8 group outside of Facebook, the hardware they are looking at developing is, according to Dugan, badass and beautiful.

I am on the one hand, tremendously excited. 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. There is much to build at Facebook… and the mission is human… compelling.

I am sad to leave the pirates of ATAP. Each of our efforts to create new, seemingly impossible products, has been faced with intense challenges along the way. Technical challenges. Organizational challenges. Challenges that might have broken lesser teams. This is the type of work we signed up for when we built ATAP. It is terrifying because it means we have to face our fear of failure, stare it down, more days than most. So be it.

Facebook is looking to get involved in a number of burgeoning fields including virtual reality and augmented reality. Regardless of what the ambitions of Building 8 are in particular, it’s clear that Dugan will be bringing an incredible amount of talent and experience to the team seeing as she has previously worked for DARPA developing breakthrough tech and had a hand in Google’s research into tech-infused fabrics, modular smartphones, and Project Tango. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that this is only the beginning, and that the company plans on “investing hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars into [Building 8]” in the years to come.

What are your thoughts regarding Facebook poaching one of Google’s stars for their mysterious hardware development group? What do you hypothesize the social giant has up its sleeve for the tech world over the next few years? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!