Google Maps Co-founder Quits To Join Facebook

Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen has left search giant to join Facebook. Sydney-based Rasmussen has also helped in the development of Google Wave, which was later shut down after it failed to take-off. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Rasmussen, who has quit the Google after six years of working for them, left after receiving a “forceful personal offer” made by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Rasmussen said that “It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company.”

Rasmussen, who resigned from Google on this Friday, will move to San Francisco where he has been invited by the company to “come hang out with us for a while and we’ll see what happens”.

Google Australia’s engineering director Alan Noble said that “Lars made great contributions to Google in innovative products like Google Maps and Google Wave. He was also instrumental in starting engineering in the Google Sydney office. We wish him all the best.”

Rasmussen said that “Obviously they’ve already changed the world and yet there seems to be so much more to be done there. And I think that it’s the right place for me to be.” With more than 500 million members worldwide, Facebook has become the web’s hottest destination, while Zuckerberg, 26, has become American’s youngest billionaires.

A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the appointment saying that the company was “thrilled [that Lars will] be part of Facebook’s world-class engineering team to help design transformative technologies”.

Alan Noble, Google Australia’s engineering director has said: “Lars made great contributions to Google in innovative products like Google Maps and Google Wave. He was also instrumental in starting engineering in the Google Sydney office. We wish him all the best.”