Vic Gundotra, The Man Behind Google+, Is Leaving Google

After nearly eight years at Google, Vic Gundotra is leaving the company. He announced today in a touching story posted on his Google+ page. Prior to joining Google, Gundotra worked at Microsoft for a very long time. His most notable achievement at Mountain View includes leading Google+ from the very beginning. Google CEO Larry Page wrote a long comment on Gundotra’s post and said that he “built Google+ from nothing.”

There will most certainly be speculation as to why Gundotra is actually leaving the internet search giant. He himself offers no reason, simply saying that it is “time for a new journey.” Gundotra doesn’t say where he will be heading next. His last update about Google+ stats came in October 2013 when he reported that it had 540 million monthly active users with 300 million regular visitors of the plus.google.com page.

As far as Google+ is concerned, reportedly it will now be led by David Besbris, a vice president of engineering at Google. He was apparently preferred for the job over Bradley Horowitz, a longtime top lieutenant of Gundotra at Google+. He sings nothing but praises for Google in his goodbye post, saying that he will be “forever in debt” to the Google+ team. Gundotra thanks Larry Page for his leadership and what he empowered him to do while at Google.

In June, the company will host Google I/O 2014. It will be the first time that this developer conference will be held without Vic Gundotra, because it was him who started the conference in the first place.

 

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Google