Phil Harrison is apparently no longer an employee at Google. According to business journalism outlet Insider, the now-former vice president and general manager of Google Stadia quietly exited the company after the cloud-based platform shut down in January.
No other details were shared about the circumstances Harrison’s departure.
It’s not surprising that Harrison would depart Google after Stadia’s sunsetting. Harrison was a very public face for the Stadia brand, taking the stage to announce the platform at GDC 2019. He would spend the following months on a full-court press tour in 2019, appearing at events like GamesBeat and E3 to convince developers and audiences about the viability of the platform.
He would then be the representative who would announce that Stadia was shutting down its efforts to publish first-party games, and then later announce that Stadia would be shutting down for good.
Given that Google itself has expressed general disinterest in consumer-facing video game products (Google Cloud’s director of Game Industry indicated to Axios that the company is focused on technological services for developers), Harrison’s industry experience may have no longer been relevant to the company.