Another Android employee defects – is something going on over there?

One day after the news that Erick Tseng is leaving Google / Android to join Facebook, another Android-focused employee, Cédric Beust, has announced today that he’s leaving for LinkedIn.

All of this comes one week before Google’s sold out developer conference Google i/o where it is widely believed that (among other announcements) Google debut the final Android 2.2 FroYo release.

So what is going on over at the Googleplex? Why would two high level members of the team leave what Google certainly considers a top-priority product at basically the same time? Is it just a case of them putting everything they had into a project and now they feel they need to move on? Or is it something more/else? If any of the involved parties want to email us, we’d be happy to post the response.

The rest of this post is pure speculation – please only read on if you’re comfortable with that (we’re not Gawker after all).

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So what else could be going on? Here’s some ideas:

• Google doesn’t like the direction that Android has taken and wants to make changes in staff (somewhat likely).
• The employees don’t like the direction that Android has taken, and are fed up (more likely).
• Google can’t afford to keep everyone on staff (highly unlikely, they’re loaded).
• Facebook and LinkedIn are actively recruiting Android employees to build/improve their Android apps (very likely, and still attractive destinations as neither has gone IPO yet).
• Google – contrary to this report – thinks that Android is on the right path but that the iPhone OS is kicking its butt, especially after seeing iPhone OS 4.0 demoed, and wants to shake things up a bit on its team to get them really going (also highly likely)
• Combination of any of these (most likely)

Thoughts? Other (conspiracy) theories?