Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

Google Apps VP Dave Girouard Leaving to Start a Company

Dave Girouard, who is Google’s VP of apps, is leaving the company, Google said today.

Girouard had been responsible for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and other cloud applications.

After eight years at Google, Girouard plans to start his own company, though not in the enterprise space. Google Ventures will be investing in his start-up, alongside Kleiner Perkins and NEA.

(Update: Girouard’s new company is called Upstart, with the tagline “The Startup is You.” According to a splash page, “Upstart lets you raise capital in return for a small portion of your future income.”)

Meanwhile, back at the Goog, Girouard’s responsibilities will transfer to Sundar Pichai, leader of the Chrome and apps team. Pichai is one of Google CEO Larry Page’s septumvirate of product heads, who were established when he took over the company last April. Part of Pichai’s agenda has been to lessen the divide between enterprise apps and consumer apps.

Departures by long-time Googlers are surprisingly rare. Google’s first employee, Craig Silverstein, left to join Khan Academy last month.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik