Facebook poaches Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra to head VR development
Facebook has poached Xiaomi’s global vice president Hugo Barra to head up its virtual reality division just three days after Barra revealed he was stepping down from his post.
With a background in hardware manufacture and distribution as well as software, Barra is well placed to advance Facebook’s VR interests, so much so that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg himself announced the appointment via a graphic of the pair meeting in VR.
Zuckerberg said: “Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They'll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I'm looking forward to having him on our team.“
Barra spent three-and-a-half years at Xiaomi but struggled to expand the manufacturers markets in India and across South East Asia where sales largely flatlined.
Prior to his life at Xiaomi, Barra served as vice president for product management at Android.