Facebook poaches Google's ATAP lead to head its new hardware division

Regina Dugan – who ran Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects division – has joined Facebook.

Dugan will be heading up Building 8, a new Facebook group that CEO Mark Zuckerberg says will be “focused on building new hardware products to advance our mission of connecting the world.”

Zuckerberg wrote:

At Google, Dugan led ATAP – which started out as a division of Motorola. When Motorola was sold to Lenovo in 2014, ATAP moved back to Google proper. Even after the Alphabet shakeup last year, ATAP remained part of Google.

Dugan’s mission at ATAP was to “do some epic shit” (her words) and she oversaw stuff like Project Tango as well as smart fabrics and modular phones. Last year, ATAP launched Project Fi, Google’s first efforts at becoming a wireless carrier. Read more...