I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat.
When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.
I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue.
I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill.
In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.
Interesting, thanks. I knew a couple of recent GoPro hires, both good people, very capable. I wonder how the restructuring is going to hit the technical side of the house there.
When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.
I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue.
I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill.
In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.