Ex-Darpa Head Regina Dugan Leaves Google for Facebook | WIRED

Quite a week for Facebook so far...

"Facebook announced the news this morning through blog posts from Dugan, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, and chief technology officer Mike “Schrep” Mike Schroepfer. “I’m excited to have Regina apply Darpa-style breakthrough development at the intersection of science and products to our mission,” Zuckerberg wrote, referring to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research and development arm of the Department of Defense. “This method is characterized by aggressive, fixed timelines, extensive use of partnerships with universities, small and large businesses, and clear objectives for shipping products at scale.”

Dugan will lead a new team inside the company dubbed Building 8. At Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, each building is tagged with its own number, but there is no Building 8—yet. The name seems to be a play off the aims of the new group: to build all sorts of future technologies for the company. Why 8? There are eight letters in the Facebook name. According to Zuckerberg, the company will put “hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars” in the group, but he did not give a specific time frame for these commitments."

Ex-Darpa Head Regina Dugan Leaves Google for Facebook | WIRED