Just several days ago, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s former Vice President for International announced that he is leaving Xiaomi after the Lunar New Year. He mentioned that the reason for him leaving was due to the fact that his “singular” life in Beijing is taking a toll on his health and he further mentioned that he would like to return to his “home” in Silicon Valley. There were a lot of guesses on what Hugo Barra will work on next after leaving Xiaomi. Although he mentioned that he would like to take some time off, people still speculated on what’s next for Barra.
The Announcement
Hugo Barra made his announcement on leaving Xiaomi through Facebook, and today it was no less than Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg who made the announcement on where Hugo Barra will be working next. In his announcement Mark Zuckerberg welcomed Hugo Barra to Facebook. This is because Hugo Barra will be leading all of Facebook’s virtual reality efforts, this includes the task of leading the Oculus Team. On a reply to the post of Mark Zuckerberg, Hugo Barra thanked the Facebook CEO and showed his excitement to join the team in a couple of months. It looks like Barra will have to take a couple of months off before taking his new task at Facebook.
On his own post, Barra affirmed the announcement and stated his title and specific role in Facebook. Barra, in two months, will become Facebook’s Vice President of Virtual Reality (VPVR) and he will be leading the Oculus team of Facebook.
Prior to joining Xiaomi, Hugo Barra spearheaded the development of the Android ecosystem at Google. When he joined Xiaomi, Barra brought Xiaomi to markets outside of China where they now are earning around $1B revenue. With all these accomplishments it seems that Hugo Barra will definitely be boosting the VR/AR efforts of Facebook.
