Alex Rainert and Dennis Crowley, Dodgeball founders who became Google employees after the internet giant bought their baby, have quit in the most unusual style.
These two-year old Googlers were unhappy and frustrated about the manner in which Google had treated their baby ("DodgeBall") that allowed new competitors (read, Twitter) to win over the game.
The duo announced their decision to resign from Google on Flickr with thumbs-down. And they have tagged the picture on Flickr as "G00G" (that's the stock symbol for Google with Zeroes)
The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us - especially as we couldn't convince them that dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space.Another irony is that Twitter, which gets much attention than Google-owned DodgeBall, is the brainchild of an ex-Googler.
Let's do a quick recap of high-profile exits from Google:
March 2006 - Google acquires @last, developers of SketchUp. March 2007 - Sketchup co-founder quits Google. [Life as Googler : 12 months]
January 2006 - Google acquires radio ads firm DMarc. February 2007 - dMarc founders leave Google. [Life as Googlers - 13 months]
February 2003 - Google acquires Pyra Labs, developers of the Blogger platform. October 2004 - Founder Evan Williams calls it a day at Googleplex. [Life as Googler - 20 months]
Does this indicate any trend ? Not really as the founding teams of other popular Google acquisitions such as YouTube, Writely, JotSpot, Picasa, MeasureMap, Urchin and others are still enjoying life at Google.
Related: Does Getting Acquired by Google Means End of Innovation ?