Hiroshi Lockheimer (born 1975) is a

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software engineer and business executive. He is one of the founding members of the Android team at

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, which was created after Google acquired the

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...

. At Google, Lockheimer is currently the senior vice president of Android, Chrome,

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfa ...

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, overseeing the company's range of mobile products.

Early life

Lockheimer, born in 1975, grew up in

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, the son of Japanese and German parents. He lived in Japan until the age of 18. In 1993, Lockheimer moved to the

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to enter

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

in Houston, Texas. Lockheimer didn't enjoy his time in Texas and dropped out to move back to Tokyo to study programming. Lockheimer returned to the United States in 1997, and three years later became the first employee of

Andy Rubin Andrew E. Rubin is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Rubin founded Android Inc. in 2003, which was acquired by Google in 2005; Rubin served as a Google vice president for 9 years and led Google's efforts in ...

's start-up, called Danger Inc.

Google

Lockheimer was approached by

after Android got acquired by Google. In 2015, Lockheimer described his interaction with Rubin to ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'':

He knew my interest in consumer devices, and specifically wireless devices. He called me up and said, ‘Hey, you know, we’re doing this thing at Google now, we got acquired. I can’t really tell you what we’re doing, but I think you’re really going to be excited about it. You should come talk to us'.

Lockheimer joined Google's Android team in April 2006, 19 months before the public unveiling of Android 1.0. Lockheimer initially started as Android's executive director, and was promoted to vice president of engineering in 2011. As of October 2015, Lockheimer is Google's senior vice president of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS & Play.

Career

* Be, Inc., manager, 1997–2000 * Danger, Inc., first employee, 2000–2000. *

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, as well as the Treo 6 ...

, program manager, 2000–2001. *

Good Technology Good Technology, owned by BlackBerry Limited, is a mobile security provider headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company serves more than 5,000 organizations worldwide in industries such as financial services, healthcare ...

, engineering manager, 2001–2004. * Microsoft IPTV, platform manager, 2005–2006. *

, executive director, 2006–2011. *

, vice president of engineering, 2011–2015. *

, senior vice president of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS & Play, 2015–present.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockheimer, Hiroshi 1975 births Businesspeople in software Google employees Living people People from Tokyo Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area