If you are the director of Social Media at Google, wouldn’t you rather be working at Facebook? That is what Ethan Beard decided to do. The Google executive turned in his resignation last week and will be joining Facebook. There he will join other ex-Googlers, such as Facebook’s new COO Sheryl Sandberg, CFO Gideon Yu (formerly YouTube’s CFO) and a slew of others. Both at the top ranks and at the bottom, Facebook is finding that the best place to recruit is Google. (It is doing to Google what Google once did to Microsoft).
As for Beard, maybe he just doesn”t think that Google is going to figure out how to sell ads effectively on social networks (even if it is trying new approaches).
Update: Beard is joining Facebook as a director of Business Development, a role he once had at Google He tells me (via a message on Facebook):
Yes, I can confirm that I have resigned from Google and will be going to work for Facebook.
I think Facebook is great for a variety of reasons: the company has an innovative product with amazing growth, the team they have assembled is first rate, and the business is at a very exciting time in its development. I am excited to join Facebook at a time and in a role where I can have a significant impact on its core business and bottom line.
The pre-IPO stock options must be nice too.