Google Loses Engineering Director To VMware

After nearly 5 years with the company, Engineering Director Mark Lucovsky has left Google for a role with VMware, TechCrunch has learned.

Before Google, Lucovsky worked at DEC and then Microsoft for 16 years, eventually gaining the title of “Distinguished Engineer.” He had been the principle architect on Windows NT, which would eventually evolve into Windows XP. Lucovsky was also the architect of Microsoft’s Hailstorm project to port older Microsoft products into .NET.

A famous anecdote recounted on TechCrunch:

But Lucovsky may be best known for the role he played in a complete and utter meltdown that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once had. As the NT architect, Lucovsky was clearly pretty vital to Microsoft, so when he went in for a meeting with Ballmer in 2004 to let him know he was leaving, you can be sure the CEO was a bit on edge.

“Just tell me it’s not Google,” Ballmer reportedly said according to court documents (for a case surrounding another Google ex-Microsoft hire). When Lucovsky said it was Google, Ballmer allegedly picked up a chair and threw it across the room.