(mashable.com)Facebook CTO Bret Taylor is planning to leave the company for more entrepreneurial pursuits, Taylor announced Friday afternoon.
In a note posted to his Facebook page, Taylor said he was eager to begin work on another startup with his
friend Kevin Gibbs, a senior staff software engineer at Google, on a yet-unnamed project.
“I had always been upfront with Mark that I eventually wanted to do another startup,” he said in an interview with AllThingsD‘s Kara Swisher, which was published at the same time as Taylor’s Facebook note. “And we felt it was the best time after the IPO and the launch of some recent things for me to do that.”
Taylor has overseen Facebook’s platform and mobile products since he was promoted to CTO two years ago. Two executives who work under Taylor, Mike Vernal and Cory Ondreijka, will take over those products, respectively, Swisher reports.
Before Facebook, Taylor worked at Google for four years, where he co-developed Google Maps, Google Local and the Google Maps API. In mid-2007, he left Google to start social network Friendfeed, which he sold to Facebook in August 2009.
The announcement comes at a bad time for Facebook, whose stock price has steadily suffered since the company went public last month.

Facebook’s Road to IPO

2004: First Offers Turned Down

Facebook launches with humble beginnings that most people have seen dramatized in The Social Network by now. It was a small social site backed by only a little money, and limited just to the undergrads at Harvard. Right out of the gate, Facebook turned down offers from an unknown investor and Friendster, each offering $10 million. This was, of course, when the company was still called TheFacebook.

Image courtesy of Flickr.