Designer Leaves Google For Twitter

Douglas Bowman has left Google and joined Twitter.

My favorite excerpt from his "goodbye google" post:

Yes, it's true that a team at Google couldn't decide between two blues, so they're testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can't operate in an environment like that. I've grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

Being pragmatic can only take a company so far. From what I have read/seen with Google, being pragmatic is at their ethos. Rightly so, they can use data to make choices in ways that benefit their business. If other companies tried the pragmatic approach they would most likely fail at it. I'm sure what makes Mr. Bowman great cannot be emulated through a-b testing. I cannot wait to see how his influence shapes the twitter interface.