Samsung exec says Andy Rubin was "stubborn" but Sundar Pichai is "super collaborative"
As the days go on, we're getting a clearer and clearer picture of why Andy Rubin stepped down as the head of Android, and Sundar Pichai was put in to replace him. The newest bit of information comes from Samsung's chief product officer Kevin Packingham, who said that Andy Rubin was "stubborn", but Sundar Pichai is "super collaborative".
The general idea around the move was pretty simple: Andy is the kind of guy who is much better suited to building something new, rather than maintaining an established product. As he said in his letter to the Open Handset Alliance, he is "an entrepreneur at heart". On the other hand, Sundar Pichai seems to be much more talented at making deals with other companies, and managing an established product, as he has done with Chrome.
According to Packingham, the relationship with Google is "super-important" to Samsung (he loves to say "super"), because ultimately Samsung was selling Google software (although you might not realize that if you picked up a Galaxy device in the last couple years.) He said that it was tough working with Rubin because once he took a position, "You weren't going to get him to deviate from that position." On the other hand, Sundar Pichai is a "super-nice person" and "super collaborative".
There has been a lot of speculation about the relationship between Samsung and Google, but this makes it sound like things may have been a bit rough, but the move to put Sundar Pichai in as head of Android could make things even better in the future.
source: Business Insider
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