What you need to know
- John Justice, who served as VP and head of product at Stadia, has left Google.
- Justice's departure raises fresh concerns about the future of Google's Stadia division.
- Before joining Google in 2019, Justice worked for nearly fifteen years at Microsoft.
Google's Stadia division, which is currently going through a rough patch, has suffered another blow. According to a report from The Information, VP and head of product at Stadia, John Justice, has left Google.
Justice had joined Google as VP in January 2019, following nearly fifteen years at Microsoft. Justice oversaw the consumer experience at Stadia. The executive hasn't updated his LinkedIn page yet, so it isn't clear what he plans to do next.
Justice isn't the only senior executive to have left Google recently. Aparna Chennapragada, a product manager who had been in charge of Google's consumer shopping as well as AR and visual search products, left the company last month to join Robinhood as chief product officer. Nikhil Sathe, VP of engineering at Nest, left to join fintech company Blackhawk Network as chief technology officer.
Justice's departure comes just two months after Google shut down Stadia Games and Entertainment, its first-party development studio. Instead of developing first-party games, Google is now focusing on adding new third-party titles to the list of best Stadia games. Google is also continuing to add new features to Stadia to deliver a better experience to users. Just last week, Stadia finally gained a Search bar for the web.
Aside from confirming Justice's departure, The Information has also revealed more details about Google's recent Search leadership shuffle. SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, who heads Google's Search, Maps, and ads product group, is leading a "structural shake-up" that aims to provide "more authority" to product managers and move away from the company's traditional engineering-led structure.
