According to a report by Josh Quittner, high-ranking engineer Benjamin Ling is leaving the Googleplex and making the not-so-long trip to join Facebook. He follows in the footsteps of YouTube's Gideon Yu, also a departure for Facebook, and others.
As Valleywag says: "Google's stunning $600-plus stock price has backfired on the company, making it profitable for top staff to bail out".
It's an issue I highlighted before in a piece about Google's attempts to hang on to thousands of staff members who were now millionaires thanks to their shares in the company.
It is for this reason that many Google employees are showered with perks - skiing trips, childcare benefits and the famous "20% time" which allows them to step out of normal routine to pursue their own projects. In particular, the engineers who develop and maintain technologies are treated with kid gloves.
"I think especially in engineering they have a lot of effort to keep it feeling small ... Google's engineers want a university-like atmosphere," says Mr [Aydin] Senkut. "That's basically what's been keeping them at bay. Their lives haven't necessarily changed with the money, because they joined to take on some of the biggest challenges, and that's not really too different today."
It's not quite the chickens coming home to roost, but perhaps a number of Google employees now see Facebook as a place to "take on some of the biggest challenges".
