Alphabet’s David Drummond is leaving months after allegations surfaced

Alphabet's chief legal officer David Drummond is leaving the company. Drummond claims he's retiring "to make way for the next generation of leaders," but allegations that he had affairs with employees could cast some doubt on his motives.

GitHub Starts Investigations After Julie Horvath’s Departure, Puts One Founder on Leave


Julie Horvath faced some very negative conditions at GitHub. A co-worker made romantic overtures to her after she refused to date him. Then one of the co-founders snubbed her for dating another co-...

BlackBerry ousts marketing and operations chiefs, replaces CFO

Kristian Tear and Frank Boulben

The high-level shakeups aren't over at BlackBerry just because the company has a new CEO. The company has just let go of Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear (pictured at left) and Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben (right), both of whom had assumed their roles roughly one year ago. There's no mention of immediate replacements. The Waterloo firm is also replacing Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka with the company's Compliance head James Yersh; Bidulka will stay on as an advisor for the rest of the fiscal year to ease the transition. CEO John Chen hasn't provided explanations for the individual departures, but he describes the executive shuffle as necessary for focusing on BlackBerry's "core strength" in mobile device management. Let's just hope that Chen is better at engineering a turnaround than his predecessors.

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Cliff Bleszinski quits Epic Games, leaves us with an Unreal feeling

Cliff Bleszinski quits Epic Games, leaves us with an Unreal feeling

Fall must be the season for sea changes in the game industry. Just weeks after BioWare's founders retired, key Epic Games veteran and Design Director Cliff Bleszinski (known to many as just CliffyB) is hanging up his hat. He simply describes it as taking a "much needed break," which makes sense when you see his development experience: he joined Epic's crew with Dare to Dream Volume One in 1993 and has nurtured virtually every major (and often minor) game franchise at the company since, including the Jazz Jackrabbit platformers, untold numbers of games in the Unreal line and most recently the Gears of War series. Bleszinski hasn't said where he's headed next, although it's hard to imagine him switching professions like the two BioWare doctors -- for many, he's synonymous with certain eras of first- and third-person shooters. Wherever he goes, we wish him the best of success.

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Cliff Bleszinski quits Epic Games, leaves us with an Unreal feeling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  sourceEpic Games  | Email this | Comments

NVIDIA loses mobile division lead Mike Rayfield

NVIDIA loses mobile division lead Mike RayfieldNVIDIA's road into mobile may have just taken an unwanted (if temporary) detour. The company confirmed at week's end that its Mobile Business Unit's General Manager Mike Rayfield quietly left the company on August 24th to join another firm, although we don't know whether he's headed to a rival or in another direction altogether. NVIDIA also hasn't yet said who replaces Rayfield at the helm. No matter who takes his place, the departure is a significant blow to the crew in Santa Clara: the executive had been heading mobile development at NVIDIA since 2005, before anyone really knew the company was interested in the handheld space, and helped make the Tegra name synonymous with fast Android phones and tablets like the One X and Nexus 7. There's little doubt that more than a few competitors would like to have him onboard.

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NVIDIA loses mobile division lead Mike Rayfield originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 01:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Insiders claim Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer has left Apple

Bloomberg Siri cofounder Adam Cheyer has left Apple

It's not uncommon for executives of smaller companies to jump ship within a few years of the business selling to a larger firm, whether it's out of entrepreneurial restlessness or unhappiness with the corporate status quo. We don't know which of the two (if any) is a factor with Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer, but tipsters for AllThingsD and Bloomberg still say that he left Apple in June to "pursue other projects." The reported departure follows that of Dag Kittlaus, who quit Apple a year earlier, and should leave the Siri team without the brunt of its early leadership two years after Apple bought the company. Although the impact is uncertain, this doesn't necessarily mean Apple's version of Siri is at risk: along with holding on to any remaining Siri staff, Cupertino will have had a long time to familiarize itself with the code. We'd also take it all with a grain of salt. Apple has declined to comment, and Cheyer's LinkedIn profile still shows him as an Apple employee. Whatever's the truth, the rumor's sources don't have the best timing.

[Image credit: Araya Diaz for TechCrunch, Flickr]

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Insiders claim Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer has left Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceBloomberg, AllThingsD  | Email this | Comments

TAT founder Hampus Jakobsson leaves RIM for startup land (update: not as much of a blow)

TAT founder Hampus Jakobsson leaves RIM for startup land

RIM just can't seem to avoid staff shakeups. Hampus Jakobsson, The Astonishing Tribe founder and a key factor in BlackBerry 10's interface design, has signaled that he's leaving the smartphone maker. He cites an itch to launch another startup as the impetus behind the move, although he hasn't said what he'll be doing. We can certainly tell that Jakobsson is aware of the climate in which he's leaving -- the veteran has been quick to note that others at RIM are taking his role and that he doesn't expect an upheaval as he heads through the door. There's at least a grain of truth to the reassurances, we'd say. With BlackBerry 10 devices appearing in January on RIM's current schedule, most of the hard work on the software will likely have already been done. Nonetheless, we're sure some fans will be disappointed that a guiding light won't be around to influence any followups.

[Image credit: Media Evolution, Flickr]

Update: We've learned that Jakobsson had been a Director of Strategic Alliances at RIM since TAT was acquired; while the company he brought into the fold is clearly working on BlackBerry interface design, he hasn't been guiding the work himself. The departure still has an impact -- it's just at the corporate level rather than in design.

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TAT founder Hampus Jakobsson leaves RIM for startup land (update: not as much of a blow) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 06:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink N4BB  |  sourceThe Astonishing Tribe (Twitter), Hampus Jakobsson (Twitter)  | Email this | Comments

Key MeeGo team members leave Nokia, N9 owners swipe away a few tears

Nokia N9 white

This week will be remembered as a volatile one if you're a MeeGo fan. Just hours after Nokia posted the PR 1.3 update for N9 owners, the company's MeeGo development lead Sotiris Makyrgiannis and other team members have confirmed that they're leaving for greener pastures. The split appears to be an amicable one, with the crew largely going to CloudBerryTec to write mobile apps (including for MeeGo) and consult on software even as they share fond memories. What's left is a lot of doubt over the fate of the swipe-driven OS itself. Nokia promised years of support for the OS as a side project following the big leap to Windows Phone, but it also hadn't mentioned the possibility of important staff departures, either. We've reached out to the company for a fuller answer -- if it turns out that MeeGo development is winding down, the staff shift could be the end to completely in-house OS creation at a company that was once defined by its custom platforms.

Key MeeGo team members leave Nokia, N9 owners swipe away a few tears originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink GSMArena, My Nokia Blog  |  sourceSotiris Makrygiannis (Twitter), Maemo.org  | Email this | Comments

PSA: SpaceX’s Dragon due to splash down at 11:44am ET (video)

PSA: SpaceX's Dragon due to splash down at 11:44am ET

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft successfully departed the International Space Station at 4:07am ET and began its gentle descent into the atmosphere soon after. It's the home straight for the historic private spaceflight company as it concludes its first ever supply mission to the heavens. It's due to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, a few hundred miles off the coast of southern California at 11:44am ET. If you'd like to watch the craft being retrieved from its watery berth then head on past the break, with coverage set to begin from 10:15am ET.

Continue reading PSA: SpaceX's Dragon due to splash down at 11:44am ET (video)

PSA: SpaceX's Dragon due to splash down at 11:44am ET (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM’s Chief Legal Officer is latest exec to leave the company

RIM's Chief Legal Officer is latest exec to leave the companyThe trickle of departures from RIM may turn into a flood in the coming weeks if recent reports are to be believed, but things aren't staying at a standstill in the interim. The company's Chief Legal Officer Karima Bawa has today become the latest top executive to leave the BlackBerry-maker, ending a career with the company that began way back in 2000. That follows last week's departure of another longtime company vet, global sales head Patrick Spence, although Bawa is said to simply be retiring, not moving to another company. According to RIM, Bawa will also stay on to help with the hiring and training of her replacement.

RIM's Chief Legal Officer is latest exec to leave the company originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 May 2012 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mobile Syrup  |  sourceReuters  | Email this | Comments