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November 22, 2007 8:02 AM PST

Facebook nabbing Google employees...Will this make Facebook's UI better?

by Matt Asay

As TechCrunch reports, Google has a new competitor in town, and it's not necessarily about products. It's about employees.

Facebook is apparently pilfering Google employees at a torrid pace. Why? Or, rather, how? Because Google is now considered staid and middle aged, while Facebook offers cool new opportunities. (The stock market begs to differ with this characterization of Google, by the way.)

...Ex-Googler's inside Facebook are saying that the problem goes further than a few high profile exits caused by vesting stock. Facebook just seems a hell of a lot "sexier" than Google (see Rosenstein's exit email). A steady stream of Google employees are making the switch to Facebook, and competition for top college grads is fierce as well.

Senior VPs at Google have dubbed it "the Facebook problem" according to a number of sources. At least ten "top performers" have made the switch over the last two months. Ex-Googler's expect to continue seeing at least two to four more leave for Facebook each month. That doesn't sound like much, but Facebook is targeting the cream of the crop. The best Googler's are being actively recruited, and many are leaving.

Good. Maybe Facebook will get a face lift and get a better, more Google-like user interface. One can only pray....

I'm kidding. (Sort of.) (Not really.) But it is interesting to see a company like Google being characterized as lower on the totem pole than anyone else. Google mints money in its sleep and seemingly lets people work on whatever turns their fancy. Is that not sexy anymore?

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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Will this make Facebook's UI better?
by royrusso November 21, 2007 11:44 PM PST
It'll make everything Beta(tm).
Reply to this comment
Social networks: How stable is this a business mod
by ceoworld November 22, 2007 4:09 AM PST
Hi Matt. Thank you for posting comment at cio.com. Here you can read a new article where i tried to find a way out how to Monetize a social network.
http://www.ceoworld.biz/?p=379
Cheers,
Ceoworld.biz
Reply to this comment
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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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