Regina Dugan exits Google to lead Facebook’s Building 8, a new R&D lab

Talent wars may never cease in Silicon Valley. Facebook today announced it has hired former Google vice president of advanced technology and projects, Regina Dugan, to head up a new group dubbed Building 8.

According to a company statement, Dr. Dugan’s department will combine R&D with product development, and focus on technologies that “fluidly blend physical and digital worlds.”

Prior to leading the ATAP group at Google, Dugan was the Director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Her TED talk about everything from tiny drones to mind-controlled prosthetics went viral in 2012.

Luckily for the social networking juggernaut, Facebook wasn’t part of the no-hiring pact between Adobe, Apple, Intel and Google. And the company has a long history of poaching great talents from Google, including COO Sheryl Sandberg.