Hugo Barra talks Xiaomi, calls it a “dream job”

Hugo Barra surprised many when he announced that he was leaving Google. Barra confirmed the details on his Google+ page by saying he was leaving Google to start a “new career chapter.” That chapter turned out to be Xiaomi and Barra had said he would be joining the team in China to “expand their incredible product portfolio and business globally.”

Anyway, at that time Barra confirmed he was joining as Vice President, Xiaomi Global and talked about how he was “particularly excited about the opportunity to continue to help drive the Android ecosystem.” After that, the details of the move remained mostly a mystery. That is until more recently. It seems Barra has recently been speaking with AllThingsD and has referred to this opportunity as being a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” calling it a “dream job.”

Barra will be dealing with global expansion. Simply put, taking the Xiaomi name and making it known outside of China. While he has yet to go into specifics, there was talk about India, Russia, Indonesia, Latin America and Thailand. Of course, Barra also understands that in order to succeed they would need to expand further — even into the US and Europe.

Time will tell how well these plans work out, but for now it appears Barra is thinking big. Further comments touched on how if he does his job correctly, that “in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”

Despite having been on-stage for the recent announcement of the MiPhone 3, Barra will not officially begin working until October. In the meantime, it looks like Barra is planning his move to China and also beginning to learn Chinese, something that he referred to as being a “daunting” task.