• The Sydney Morning Herald, Monday, November 1, 2010 11:52 AM

Lars Rasmussen isn't the first exec to leave Google for Facebook, but, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports, his case is somewhat unique. There's obviously the excitement that comes with joining something new and not-yet-entirely defined. "It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company," the co-founder of Google Maps told The Herald. "They've already changed the world and yet there seems to be so much more to be done there."

Apart from Facebook's bright prospects, however, there's also the matter of Google failing to stand by Rasmussen and his visionary pet project, Google Wave. "We were not quite the success that Google was hoping for, and trying to persuade them not to pull the plug and ultimately failing was obviously a little stressful," Rasmussen said. "It takes a while for something new and different to find its footing and I think Google was just not patient." Funny coming from a company that didn't even have a business model for the first three of four years of operation.

Read the whole story at The Sydney Morning Herald »