Rasmussen Moves On

Lars Rasmussen has left the building.  Lars is one of Googles leading project engineers, and is the father of both Google Maps and the ill fated  Wave.

He has been living in Australia for the past few years. He founded Where 2 Technologies along with his brother Jens Rasmussen. The startup was later acquired by Google and morphed into Google Maps.

His next big project was the hyped Google Wave. Announced last year, the product promised to revolutionize real-time communication and collaboration. However, it proved complex and confusing, a great piece of technology in search of an actual use.

The rumor mill has Lars moving over to Facebook,

Rasmussen confirmed his departure on his Facebook page. Yesterday was his last day of work at Google. He didn’t give any indication where he’ll be heading next, other than he’d be “a whole big ocean closer” (he was living in Australia where the Wave team was based). But the fact that he put all this info on Facebook is telling. From what we’re hearing, he will be joining Facebook.

Neither Facebook nor Google has returned our request for comment yet.

Google killed Wave just a few weeks after making it publicly available. Wave will live on as an open-source project, but Google has no plans to fund or develop Wave anymore.

If Rasmussen does move to Facebook it could mean some exciting things for Facebook and her users.   Rasmussen isn’t only a skilled programmer but very imaginative.