Tech

The Guy Who Led The Charge On Facebook 'Graph Search' Also Created Google's Biggest Flop

By Alyson Shontell
Read in app
lars rasmussen
Nial Kennedy/Flickr

Lars Rasmussen is a key engineer behind Facebook Graph Search, the new product Facebook unveiled today.

Graph Search is a way to find people, places, and things your friends recommend. When Facebook can't find relevant search results, it will fill in the rest with Microsoft's Bing.

Rasmussen was a former Googler who joined Facebook in 2010. Google bought his startup and turned it into Google Maps, a big success. But Rasmussen also oversaw one of Google's biggest flops: Google Wave.

Google Wave was a collaboration tool for the Web that was shut down in 2010, a year after its splashy launch. 

Even though Wave flopped, Rasmussen's contributions to Google were huge, and it was a big surprise when he left the company for Facebook. At the time, he said Facebook was a "once-in-a-decade type of company."

Facebook has needed a product like Graph Search to rejuvenate the social network for a long time. CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the Rasmussen-led project one of Facebook's three core pillars, along with Timeline profiles and the News Feed personalized homepage.

Read next

极速168赛车官方网站图片

Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know

极速168赛车官方网站图片

Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know

极速168赛车官方网站图片

Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know

极速168赛车官方网站图片

Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know

Alyson Shontell Business Insider
Alyson Shontell
Alyson is the Editor-in-Chief and CCO at Fortune.  She was previously a co Editor-in-Chief overseeing Business Insider's tech and business coverage.She joined Business Insider in July 2008 as the company's sixth employee. She started as a sales planner before joining the editorial team in 2010, where she became a startup reporter and was first to cover some of today's largest tech companies, including Pinterest, Tinder, Instagram, Uber and Snap. Alyson rose to become a senior correspondent, then Executive Editor.She was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider in 2016, at which point she became the youngest and only woman to run a global business publication. Under her leadership, the business division has grown to hundreds of  millions of monthly readers.Alyson was a host of  Insider's conferences and launched a podcast, "Success! How I Did It," where she interviewed influencers ranging from Sheryl Sandberg to Steve Ballmer about their career paths (subscribe on iTunes here).She has appeared on ABC, Good Morning America, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, and CBC, and she has interviewed media personalities such as Megyn Kelly, technology leaders like Fred Wilson, political leaders like John Brennan, and sports star LeBron James. She is a judge for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Awards in business journalism, and has been named one of Min's Rising Stars in Media, as well as Folio's 2017 Top Women in Media.She graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she majored in psychology and advertising.You can read some of her investigative articles here:— Leaked videos reveal the true founding story of Snapchat— The founder who dumped Jared Kushner: Inside the phone call that left the White House star in a fit of rage— The downfall of billion-dollar startup, Fab— How a startup that raised the largest seed round in Silicon Valley history blew itself up before it even launched— The dark side of Facebook, where people lie, cheat, and make millions— A profile of Uber's controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick— The mystery of Jody Sherman, a founder who was driven to suicide and left behind a shocking business disasterDisclosure: Alyson owns bitcoin and Snap. She is also an investor in The Spun, a sports-media startup founded by her husband.
HOME Subscribe Read in app