Dive Brief:
-
Amazon CTO of devices Jon McCormack has departed Amazon for the second time in a year and has landed at Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects group, Re/Code reports.
-
McCormack spend a few weeks at Yahoo earlier this year, where his ideas to turn the company’s software unit around reportedly weren’t readily received.
-
But his return to Amazon, where he was instrumental in developing the company’s Kindle and television products, was, apparently, short-lived.
Dive Insight:
McCormack is part of the innovative team behind Amazon’s hugely successful Kindle, though his favorite device is probably his Nikon camera. His back and forth, out-and-in-and-out of Amazon isn’t typical corporate hiring news, but isn’t really that surprising considering McCormack’s brash reputation and the keyed-up ups and downs of the tech world in general.
Is McCormack’s putative genius worth all the trouble? Amazon was willing to take him back, and that’s one sign. Yahoo could have used a shot in the arm in his areas of expertise, but reportedly neither his style nor ideas sat well there.
Google is ready for some good news, and it has the same outsized ambitions as Amazon. Sounds like a good fit.