All pals as Facebook star leaves: Next stop the app business?
A big departure from Facebook : Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor has announced he's leaving the company this summer to launch a startup with Google’s senior software engineer Kevin Gibbs.
Brett Taylor : First big FB departure
It is the first big departure from Facebook since its IPO but It's clearly not an acrimonious departure. Bret writes in a post: "I want to give a special thanks to Mark Zuckerberg. You've not only been my boss for the past three years, but my mentor and one of my closest friends.
"Thanks to all of you at Facebook for the most incredible three years of my life."
There is no word yet on what Taylor and Gibbs’ company will focus on, but their previous work experience suggests it may be related to "working with app developers," says Adweek. Certainly, the app market is really hot, witness Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram.
As a group product manager at Google, Taylor built the company's developer product team and launched its now-annual developer conference. Early in his career he developed Google Maps.
Gibbs currently leads the Google App Engine project, which lets developers run apps through Google.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "I've really enjoyed working with Bret and getting to know him as a friend and teammate. I'm grateful for all he has done for Facebook and I'm proud of what he and his teams have built.
"I'm also proud that we have a culture where great entrepreneurs like Bret join us and have such a big impact."
Before joining Facebook Taylor founded and was CEO of social content aggregator FriendFeed, bought by Facebook in 2009.