Web giant Google has been left without a leader for its Google+ social networking site after Vic Gundotra has stepped down as senior vice president for social at Google after almost eight years at the firm.
Gundotra has been credited by Google co-founder Larry Page for “building Google+ from nothing” three years ago. Google has not yet announced a successor to Gundotra, who joined the firm in 2007 from Microsoft, where he served as general manager of platform evangelism.
He fittingly announced his departure in a Google+ post but provided no details regarding his next steps or his reason for leaving the firm. In the post, Gundotra thanked Page and the Google+ team, who he noted developed Google+ “against the scepticism of so many”.
Gundotra’s departure has fuelled rumours that Google will scale back its efforts to integrate Google+ functionality into all of its services and restructure its Google+ team. However, Google has denied that it will make any strategic changes as a result of the departure. In a blog post in response to Gundotra’s, Larry Page noted that Google intends to continue to build new experiences for Google+ users.