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YouTube’s Director of Product Management departs for Spotify ahead of its own streaming music service debut

284fe42Google may not be buying Spotify, but a top executive from YouTube is jumping ship from the Google-owned company to the subscription music service giant. Re/code reports that Shiva Rajaraman, whose title was Director of Product Management at Google (YouTube) according to his LinkedIn, is leaving Google/YouTube several years with the company to take a new role at Spotify. The report notes that Rajaraman’s role at YouTube encompassed managing the development of YouTube’s yet-to-be launched music streaming service, and his new position at Spotify employs him at what will likely be a major competitor to YouTube’s delayed service.

“Shiva has done so much to help grow YouTube into what it is today. We wish him all the best, and know that the team he has put in place will continue to serve all our creators and viewers exceptionally well,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to Re/code.

Rajaraman’s departure is also notable as it follows a string of similar staff shuffles at the video streaming company.

Toward the start of this year Google ad head Susan Wojcicki replaced former YouTube head Salar Kamangar taking his role, Venkat Panchapakesan took over for Shishir Mehrotra as head of engineering, and Google’s Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora also departed.

YouTube’s parent company Google announced on July 1st that it had acquired the music service Songza mentioning plans to “bring their great work to the music experience on YouTube”.

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