Google has fired several senior Fitbit executives including the company’s co-founders – James Park and Eric Friedman. According to a statement by Google to 9to5Google, the tech giant is also laying off employees in the Devices and Services teams, which are responsible for making products like Nest, Fitbit and Pixel.
This might mark the end of Fitbit as we know it. The tech giant acquired Fitbit back in November of 2018 for around $2.1 billion. While the Pixel team seems to be the least affected, Google has fired hundreds of employees from the Augmented Reality division, which suggests that the company might stop working on its own AR hardware.
In the past, these divisions existed as separate teams and worked on various aspects like hardware engineering, design, user interface and software. The company’s hardware division was like a mini-company that worked on smartphones, smart homes and wearables.
A recent report from 9to5Google suggests Google seems to be reorganizing things by switching to a more functional organizational model that involves a single team working on the hardware front to make products like Pixel, Nest and Fitbit. Moreover, it looks like there will be a single person responsible for all the hardware Google is working on, but it remains to be seen if the move will unify the tech giant’s varying product lineup.
