Facebook CTO announces departure

Leaving to start his own company with Google engineer

Now that Facebook has gone public, and made many of its employees a lot of money in the process, it will not be a surprise if some of them decide to take the opportunity to venture out on their own to try and strike it rich.

The first such departure was announced yesterday by Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor, who confirmed the news, appropriately enough, on his Facebook wall.

“I wanted to let you all know that I'll be leaving Facebook later this summer. I'm sad to be leaving, but I'm excited to be starting a company with my friend Kevin Gibbs,” Taylor wrote.

”While a transition like this is never easy, I'm extremely confident in the teams and leadership we have in place. I'm very proud of our recent accomplishments in our platform and mobile products, from Open Graph and App Center to Facebook Camera and our iOS integration. I'm even more excited for the world to see all the amazing things these teams have coming.”

Kevin Gibbs is leaving his post as an engineer at Google.

Taylor also once worked for Google, where he was the product manager for Google Maps and the corresponding app. Taylor was the CEO of FriendFeed, which was purchased by Facebook in August 2009 for $50 million. Since then he has worked as CTO of Facebook.

In his post, Taylor called Mark Zuckerberg a mentor and one of his closest friends.

Zuckerberg has released a statement about Taylor’s departure, saying, “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.”

Facebook stock price

Facebook raised $16 billion, the largest ever for a tech company, but it has since become an embarrassment. The price had tumbled amid accusations that Facebook and its underwriters withheld vital information from investors.

The stock had been rebounded slightly in the past week or two. After hitting a low of $25.87 on June 5, down from its IPO price of $38, the stock has now gone up the past three trading days. On Friday, it was up over 6% to end at $30.01. It is now down 21% from its IPO price. 

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