Report: Google's Pixel division has lost Marc Levoy, the engineer leading the camera division, and GM Mario Queiroz over the past year, as sales disappoint
The general manager for the Pixel division is also gone. — What you need to know — According to The Information, Marc Levoy and Mario Queiroz have both left Google. Source: The Information .
Context & Ripple Effects
The Information's report closes the loop on two departures that had been trickling out: [[a:944656|Mario Queiroz had already left the hardware unit for Sundar Pichai's office back in August 2019]], and the new reporting confirms both he and camera lead Marc Levoy are gone from Pixel entirely, with the outlet tying the exodus to disappointing sales.
Levoy matters beyond headcount — his computational photography work is what let the Pixel line punch above its hardware weight against better-resourced rivals. Within months, Adobe hired him to build a universal camera app, taking that expertise outside Google altogether.
First-order effects
- Pixel's flagship differentiator — camera quality built on Levoy's computational photography research — loses its architect just as sales are underperforming, leaving the division without the GM who ran it or the engineer behind its core feature.
Second-order effects
- Competitors gain directly: Adobe's universal camera app puts Pixel-grade computational photography techniques on any phone rather than locking them to Google hardware, eroding the camera advantage that justified Pixel's premium.
Third-order effects
- The departures foreshadow a recurring pattern — Google went on to cut several hundred engineering roles in 2024 with most hardware losses in AR, then [[a:884573|cut hundreds more in the platforms and devices unit covering Android, Pixel, and Chrome in 2025 after January buyouts]] — suggesting sustained shrinkage of first-party hardware ambitions whenever devices fail to carry their weight.
The trend: Google's device business is being progressively de-emphasized through talent attrition and repeated hardware layoffs, with each round pushing differentiated software features toward licensing or third-party homes instead of exclusive hardware moats.