• Silicon Alley Insider, Friday, June 5, 2009 12:15 PM

Google has lost another key executive to Facebook; AdWords operations chief Grady Burnett is leaving the search giant to become head of Facebook's growing self-service advertising unit. Silicon Alley Insider's Nicholas Carlson says the move is a smart one for Facebook, which just took $200 million in funding at a $10 billion valuation.

"We think Facebook could get to profitability in a hurry if it beefed up its ad sales operations," Carlson writes. "A well-connected Valley source tells us Facebook advertisers are finally beginning to see decent return on their spend. So today's hire is a big step toward that goal."

Burnett, a DoubleClick veteran, will move from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif, where he will report directly to COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is also a former top Google exec. He will be occupying a new position, a Facebook spokesperson tells Crain's Detroit. Carlson says that at this point, "Facebook has way more upside than Google, which is going through something of a re-org in its advertising business and many figure is done with its days of 30% year-over-year growth."

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