At Least It's Not Facebook: A Google Director Departs To Become Loopt Exec

Google is bleeding talent. As companies mature, that tends to happen. But the fact that a large number are defecting to rival Facebook clearly has Google worried — enough to offer massive retention bonuses and across-the-board salary increases. But it’s not totally stopping the talent drain, as another Director of Engineering has left. But Google can relax a bit as at least he’s not going to Facebook.

Location-based service Loopt has hired Aditya Palande to be their new Vice President of Engineering. He’s leaving Google after just about three and a half years there. Most recently, he was in charge of the entire portfolio of applications in the CRM space for the search giant. In total, he has about 20 years of engineering experience at various companies.

Loopt was one of the pioneers in the location space, but has since been overshadowed by rivals like Foursquare. But the company has recently taken the approach of aligning itself more closely with Facebook, as the social network makes a heavy push into the location space with Places.

They’re now charged with providing additional utility on top of Facebook’s location graph. And Palande will be in charge of the technical details behind that. He notes that the space is still in its nascent stages.