In the "whatever happened to dept.", I looked up old Vic's twitter profile

Vic Gundotra led the Google+ effort at Google, and famously left the company in April, 2014. He subsequently had a stint as CEO of AliveCor, a position he left "for personal reasons" in January of 2019.

Vic joined Twitter in 2015. Through his term at AliveCor, the thread was the standard anodyne tech-leader stuff, vaguely but noncommittally leftish politics on occasion, but mostly tecch promotions and occasional photography and light fare.

On 27 October 2019, he reshares a Sean Spicer tweet, and since that time, Gundotra's feed has heavily featured other alt-right and fascist commentators and propaganda. Convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza, discredited disinformation site Zerohedge, seditionist Ted Cruz. Al-tright / white nationalist / Nazi / fascist: Daily Caller, Laura Ingraham, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Andy Ngo. Jim Jordan, Trump War Room, Ben Shapiro, Brad Parscale, Washington Examiner.

True colours, they say.

#VicGundotra #Google #GooglePlus #trumpists #AltRight #WhiteNationalsm #politics

Vic Gondotra leaving Google

"And then"

Today I'm announcing my departure from Google after almost 8 years.

I have been incredibly fortunate to work with the amazing people of Google. I don't believe there is a more talented and passionate collection of people anywhere else. And I'm overwhelmed when I think about the leadership of +Larry Page and what he empowered me to do while at Google. From starting Google I/O, to being responsible for all mobile applications, to creating Google+, none of this would have happened without Larry's encouragement and support. I've written of what I've felt is the rot setting in at Google
And while I don't think Gundotra is the sole source of it (from what I've seen, it goes clear to the top: Brin, Page, and Schmidt), my impression of Gundotra's influence on the culture has been strongly negative.

There's no way of knowing, of course, whether this was entirely his choice or not. Or if it's the result of failure to meet expectations or deliver on goals. But given the shaky reception of the tech world to Google Plus, Google Glass (a wonderful bit in Forbes yesterday on that), and the Aschluss -- the forced integration of accounts from disparate Google properties into Google Plus, I can't but suspect that this played a role.

So, while I wish Vic well, I wish better on Google than we've seen in the past eight years.

#gundotra #departures #googleplus #failure #vicgundotra