Google Glass Creator Heads To Amazon

Where do you go after leading projects at Google’s top-secret skunkworks, Google[X]?

NASA? DARPA? The secret underground bunker where they’re keeping the hoverboards, jet packs, and flying cars?

Nope. The answer, it seems, is Amazon.

Babak Parviz, the Googler most heavily credited with creating Google Glass, has moved on to an unspecified role at Amazon.

Yesterday afternoon, Parviz posted a somewhat cryptic update to his Google+ page:

amazon

Leaving less to interpretation, he later updated his Google+ bio with a more concrete confirmation:

Having worked at companies ranging from tiny start-ups to huge corporations and universities in Europe and the US, I have found each one to be fun in its own unique way.

I founded and led a few efforts at Google (among them, Google Glass and Google Contact Lenses are public so far :) prior to moving to Amazon and work on a few other things now…

As we broke back in May, Parviz’ role in leading the Glass team had recently gone to ex Art.com-CMO/Bausch & Lomb exec, Ivy Ross.

Babak also led Google[X]’s effort to build a smart contact lens that could help diabetics measure their glucose levels without the endless needle pricks.

As of May, Sergey Brin had mentioned that Google[X] had eight projects in the works. Of those, we know at least partial details of six: Google Glass, driverless cars, Google’s wind energy efforts (Makani Power), the Project Loon Internet balloons, a neural network that could learn to recognize objects/animals without traditional manual programming, and the smart contact lenses.

Of those six, Babak led two.

No word yet on what Babak’s role at Amazon will be — but given his background and Amazon’s new-found interest in building everything from smartphones to drones, it’ll certainly be something pretty interesting.