Google Wave creator moves to Facebook

The Google Australia employee who was behind the creation of Google Wave has left the search giant and is now working at Facebook.

Lars Rasmussen told Fairfax that he would be leaving Google after six years following a “compelling personal pitch” from Mark Zuckerberg.

"Obviously they've already changed the world and yet there seems to be so much more to be done there. And I think that it's the right place for me to be,” he said.

"I think if you were to ask me two or three years ago if Facebook was going to be this big, I wouldn't have picked it. And I have a great deal to learn there from Mark and his team.”

Rasmussen will relocate to San Francisco. He apparently doesn’t have a job description, saying he has been told that he will “come hang out with us for a while and we’ll see what happens”.

Google Australia engineering director Alan Noble has said in a statement that Rasmussen made “great contributions” the company, and that it “wishes him all the best”.