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Google hardware VP in charge of Pixel series calls it quits after only six months

David Foster, vice president of hardware product development at Google, has left the company after only six months.
By
April 27, 2017

Google has recently lost one of its top executives responsible for the Pixel series of phones. David Foster, who joined the company back in October 2016, has decided to call it quits. He was the vice president of hardware product development and worked on a few different products including the voice-controlled Home speaker, among others.

Prior to joining Google, Foster worked at Amazon where he was in charge of the development of a number of products including Kindle tablets and the Alexa-powered Echo speakers, just to name a few.

This is a blow to Google, which has big ambitions when it comes to hardware, even if Foster joined after the Pixels had already been developed. Although the company makes most of its money in other business areas, mainly advertising, hardware is expected to be a “meaningful revenue driver”, according to a report from Jefferies LLC. The company will release quite a few new products this year, with the most interesting being the new Pixel generation.

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What’s interesting is that Google apparently isn’t planning to replace Foster anytime soon, according to Bloomberg at least. It looks like the company isn’t really worried too much at this point, even though it must be halfway through developing the successor to last year’s Pixel and Pixel XL. It’s unclear how Foster’s departure might affect the development of those devices.

It’s also not clear where Foster is headed next, although he does have a lot of experience across most of the major players in Silicon Valley. Prior to Google and Amazon, Foster also worked at hardware groups at Microsoft as well as Apple in the past. If Foster finds himself aimlessly wandering around San Francisco in the next little while, we’d happily sit down with him for a pint to hear the stories he could tell.