Hugo Barra, one-time head of Oculus and VP of Facebook Reality Labs partnerships, has announced that he’s left Facebook.

Barra announced the news in a Facebook post, saying that May 17th was his last day at the company. Barra says he is going on to so “something completely different” as he takes his next step in the healthcare technology space. Exactly where that will land him isn’t clear for now.

Image courtesy Facebook

“I hope to be able to apply what I’ve learned from working in the consumer tech industry to help solve meaningful problems in the healthcare world. Looking forward to sharing more soon,” Barra says.

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Barra came to Facebook in 2017 from his role as Global VP at the China-based tech giant Xiaomi, replacing Oculus’ first CEO Brendan Iribe. Iribe allegedly left the company due to Facebook’s decision to shift focus away from the PC VR Rift platform and towards standalone VR. Rift has since been shelved after the release of Rift S, the PC VR successor built in partnership with Lenovo.

During his tenure at Facebook, Barra oversaw the launch of the standalone 3DOF headset Oculus Go in 2018 as head of Oculus. Assuming his latest ultimate role in 2019, he also worked on the company’s Ray-Ban styles AR glasses.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • CURTROCK

    Hey Hugo : will always remember the $399 Summer Of Rift ! That was a pivotal point in time, for VR adoption. Dropping the price down to $399 was AWESOME! Good times.

    • Jennifer Brown

      Get $190 per h from Google!…~a235~ Indeed this can be best since I basically got my underlying finance check of $24413 and this was simply of one week…I am aslo purchased Range Rover Velar right after this payment…~a235~ it is really best job I have even had and you will not for give yourself if you not check it >>>> http://www.zilo.app/KuHNP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Adrian Meredith

    I still miss him from the android days, great presenter

  • sfmike

    I’m sure he sees his billionaire future in the corrupt healthcare technology space as VR isn’t growing fast enough for the investor set.

  • No Oculus Go, No Barra

  • audreytferrell

    Lyla previous six weeks l earned $19562 by working on my pc staying at my home in my free hours.(r1217) I’m able how to do it by working few time in whole day with my laptop. Realy it’s very easy & everyone definetly can join this work. >>> http://ncu.one/aZ

  • Just some clueless Facebook stooge, not one of the founding members of Oculus. He replaced a good man and made terrible decisions, although I suppose the best any of them could have done is stay out of John Carmack’s way.

    The only questions are how much he hindered Oculus when he was there and what kinda idiot will they replace him with?

    • On a personal note, my best friend bought a Go and it offset his interest in VR by YEARS! I got him to get a proper Rift and eventually a Quest 2. He loves VR now! But the Go was such a rancid piece of @@$%#$, that he thought VR was dumb for years afterwards. Now my friend won’t play a game unless it’s in VR!

      • Anonymous

        I don’t even know the guy but your comment really isn’t fair tho. Go made perfect sense at the time as an AIO, since the smartphone chips just weren’t up to par even if FB was already willing to sell at equal or less than break even.

        Of course you are right that you can do only so much with 3 DoF, making Go feel like a mere flashy gimmicky gadget with no real applications. But at least Go sold well enough to warrant the development of Quest. Only companies who still insist on releasing phone VR or 3DoF AIO from this point forward deserves bashing.