Monday, May 4, 2015

Facebook at Work Lead Lars Rasmussen Leaving for Startup

One of the driving forces behind Facebook at Work and Graph Search is leaving to face the music, as engineering director Lars Rasmussen announced that he will leave the company in June to co-found a music startup.

TechCrunch broke the news of Rasmussen’s departure, saying that he and partner Elomida Visviki will team up on the startup, and adding that two of the social network’s executives will now head Facebook at Work: London-based global partnerships head Julien Codorniou will focus on partnership support, while the project’s engineering team will be led by Chaitanya Mishra, who is also based in London.

Facebook at Work launched in beta in January.FacebookAtWorkTest650

Rasmussen said in an email to TechCrunch:

Leaving Facebook was an incredibly difficult decision. Working there has never been more exciting for me, in particular given the incredible momentum behind Facebook at Work and the ridiculously talented people I work with on that project and at Facebook in general. But over the past year, my fiancé, Elomida, has built what I think is a new and exciting way to compose and experience music. And trying to turn that into a successful startup together will be way too much fun to postpone any longer.

And a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch:

We are grateful for Lars’ many contributions over the years. We’re a company of entrepreneurs, and now that Facebook at Work is off the ground and growing quickly, we understand Lars’ desire to return to his startup roots. We wish him the very best.

Readers: Can Facebook at Work survive the loss of one of its driving forces?

No comments:

Post a Comment