Twitter's pedigree is getting increasingly rich at the expense of Google and other Silicon Valley tech titans. With the holidays behind us, the microblogging powerhouse is starting the new year with more new faces at its San Francisco headquarters. Among them is Bakari Brock, most recently an in house lawyer for YouTube and Google focused on music, video and syndication.Brock, whose LinkedIn profile shows him as corporate counsel at Google, starting in 2007, was heavily quoted in late 2008 when the video service introduced e-commerce capabilities enabling customers to purchase from partners including iTunes and Amazon, and his comments were included in publications such as the New York Times and GigaOM site NewTeeVee.
Formerly of Google, Brock Joining Twitter
Brock's LinkedIn biography states a specialty focusing "on negotiation and drafting of music, video and software licenses; and counseling on copyright, ecommerce, and general policy issues." As Twitter grows increasingly visible, and looks to embark on a revenue-generating advertising model which we have been told we will all "love", somebody has got to make sure the contracts and licenses are good to go. Brock was added to the Twitter Team list on Sunday, which likely means he starts work Monday.
Prior to his work at YouTube and Google, Brock was previously an attorney at Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP and he attended Harvard Law School.
Brock's hire is among the most notable as part of a hiring boom at Twitter that sees ten new employees start work on January 4, 2010. The others:
Paul Soals (formerly of Bebo), Ed Ceaser (formerly of TiVo), Dmitriy Ryaboy (formerly of Cloudera), Nancy Broden (formerly of Qik), Tony Wang (also from Google), John Sirois (from VMware), Jinen Kamdar (a second Ning escapee) and Jane Huang.
These new hires are on top of the team gained in the Mixer Labs acquisition announced on December 23rd.
OF NOTE: Twitter was premature in adding some of these people. One hire previously included said their start date was 1/11, and as a courtesy, they have been removed.
We previously noted Twitter's hire of Utkarsh Srivastava from Yahoo! and Josh Elman of Facebook in the fall.