Hugo Barra to head virtual reality team Oculus at Facebook

In a Facebook post today morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Hugo Barra will be joining Facebook. Hugo will be leading the Oculus team where he will head all the virtual reality efforts.

Mark and Hugo know each other since the Hugo was developing the Android operating system at Google and then at Xiaomi. Mark welcomed Hugo onboard the Oculus team as Vice President for VR (VPVR). Mark said on his Facebook post, "I'm excited that Hugo Barra is joining Facebook to lead all of our virtual reality efforts, including our Oculus team. Hugo's in China right now, so here we are together in VR. It seems fitting. I've known Hugo for a long time, starting when he helped develop the Android operating system, to the last few years he's worked at Xiaomi in Beijing bringing innovative devices to millions of people. Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They'll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I'm looking forward to having him on our team."

Ex-Vice President for Chinese tech giant Hugo Barra announced earlier this week about his exit from the Xiaomi. He took to Facebook to announce his exit where he shared his experience of 3.5 years with the Chinese tech giant. Bin Lin, the co-founder and president of Xiaomi replied in Barra’s post that Hugo will continue to be an advisor to the company and Xiaomi senior vice president Xiang Wang will now lead the entire global efforts in future.

Also read: Hugo Barra quits Xiaomi

Hugo gave out his explanation for leaving China as staying miles away from his comfort zone and working with in China has taken a huge toll on his health and personal life because of the ‘singular environment’ he lived in. He said his life is in Silicon Valley, where he will start a new team with a bigger startup. With the new position at Facebook Oculus, Hugo will take on the challenge of heading the virtual reality team.

Hugo also took to Facebook and Twitter today morning to reveal his next position at Facebook Oculus as VPVR. In his Facebook post this morning, he said, "I’m excited to share my next adventure as I return to Silicon Valley—I'll be joining Facebook as VP of virtual reality (VPVR!) and lead the Oculus team. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun always says that the highest calling of an engineer is to make technology breakthroughs quickly and readily available to the widest possible spectrum of humanity. That will be my mission at Facebook and I look forward to building the future of immersive technology with Mark Zuckerberg, Brendan Trexler Iribe, Mike Schroepfer, and the visionaries in the Oculus team."

We are now to see how Oculus, the startup recently company acquired by Facebook, will use Hugo’s experience towards taking virtual reality to new levels.