People move. People leave companies. It happens. New CEOs, directors, leaders, like to bring in their own people, it happens. Here’s the thing, in technology people don’t make markets.
Seeing myspace bring in former facebook staff do I think it’s going to help myspace take over facebook? No. Seeing AOL bring in former Googlers do I think it’s going to help AOL take over Google (or MSN or Yahoo!)? No. Seeing MSN bring in former Yahoo!’s do I think it’s going to help MSN search take over Yahoo! search. No.
People work together with products and markets. You can’t just swap the market by swapping over the people. It doesn’t work like that. People leave organisations for reasons. Van Natta left facebook because (IMHO) facebook brought in someone better. People get stale and it’s hard to re-innovate or reinvent to create the next wave of success. Just cause someone had success at a competitor doesn’t mean they’ll have success with you. All it means is that they understand what the competition did well.
I believe to truly take market share, bring in someone who doesn’t have the same “we did things this way at the competition” crutch. You need someone who can look and see what the competition does well, but also where the competition is weak. You need someone who can think laterally and spark innovation rather then just jockey for position.
