Snap’s Latest AR Moves; Meta’s VR Safety Fallout

Add Google to the short list of big name companies that serve as an executive recruiting ground for Snap. Anne Laurenson is leaving Google’s Android team to become Snap’s first Managing Director of Global Carrier Partnerships, Snap said today. Laurenson follows recent high-profile arrivals at Snap from Facebook and Adobe.

Laurenson spent a decade at Google pursuing partnerships with mobile carriers for Android throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia, giving her an extensive set of relationships to draw upon for Snap. Those will be valuable for Snap which needs the support of phone carriers to get its AR glasses in stores and in front of a wide audience of early adopters. In that sense, Snap has a lot to gain from picking up an executive who has worked with carriers to help make Android more popular than Apple’s iOS in multiple parts of the world.