Google Loses Another Exec To Facebook

March 26, 2008 11:43 a.m. EST

Mountain View, CA (AHN) - The brain-drain from Internet giant Google to hot social hangout Facebook continues. Ethan Beard, who ran Google's social media operation, becomes Facebook's business development director. The move comes as 23-year-old Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg seeks to boost management of the private company.

Beard joins former Google operating head Sheryl Sandberg, ex Google finance chief Gideon Yu and former Google engineer Benjamin Ling.

Although Google has more than three times as many employees (16,800 versus Facebook's 500), the social networking site is supposedly worth $15 billion, while Google's shares have fallen 35 percent since January, according to the Wall Street Journal.