Rumors started to leak earlier today that Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz (right) and colleague Justin Rosenstein were leaving to start their own company.
Facebook has since confirmed the rumor to us with a simple quote from Mark Zuckerberg: “Dustin has always had Facebook’s best interests at heart and will always be someone I turn to for advice.”
Fortunately, Rosenstein (who formerly worked at Google as product manager of Google Page Creator) has posted more information about their reasons for departure in a Facebook note to friends, which we have reproduced with his permission below.
In it, he describes briefly how Moskovitz and he plan to build to an “extensible enterprise productivity suite” that uses Facebook Connect as its user authentication system and borrows many of Facebook’s own design conventions. The two of them thought about building this suite from within Facebook but eventually decided that it would make more sense to build it within their own company. The choice quote: “We hope our products will become to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life.”
I was a nerdy little boy. (Not much has changed.) Starting at age ten, I would spend hours a day holed up in my room, alone or with friends, programming til I collapsed. When I grew up, I wanted to be a software entrepreneur. I knew this with as much conviction, and about as much knowledge of what the role actually entailed, as other kids might have wanted to be an astronaut or President. In high school, I even started “Smiley Technologies, Inc.” and bamboozled some friends one summer into working on a Java-based productivity suite for group collaboration… but by September we learned the hard lesson that it takes more than three months to take on Microsoft Office.
By college, I felt pretty confident I was never gonna work for anyone other than myself. That is, until I heard about Google’s associate product management program. I have an enormous amount of respect and admiration for Google, and the opportunity to be on the inside, working as a mini-entrepreneur, was just too sweet to pass up. So I promised myself I’d stay at Google for just a few years, and then head out on my own.
That is, until a few years later when I got a friend-request from Dustin Moskovitz, who had co-founded Facebook with his college roommates around the time I’d joined Google. I told him I wasn’t interested in another job, but we met up for lunch anyway, and I’m glad we did. The more I learned about Facebook, the more inspired I was by its mission and team, and eventually decided this too was just too important an opportunity to say No to.
I’m really happy I took the job. I’m thrilled with the time I’ve had at the company, and with the incredible peers I’ve gotten to know and work with. But something else exciting happened in the year and a half since I joined Facebook. I started spending a lot of time after work talking to Dustin. Efficiency-through-software was dear to his heart as well, and we would stay up til 3am raving about how shortcut keys and high-level abstractions would Change The World. We shared a passion for technology, for entrepreneurship, and for using them to solve the same set of problems.
As our visions for how productivity software could work came into alignment, we thought about building it inside of Facebook. It was an attractive option in many ways, and neither of us was eager to exit a company that was in such an exciting phase of its development. But at some point it became clear that doing so wouldn’t be good for Facebook or for us. Facebook needs to continue its mission of making the world more open through social software, without distraction, and the new project requires a company built around it from the ground up, with the goals of efficiency and group collaboration embedded deeply into its DNA from day 1.
So we’ve decided to leave Facebook (in about a month) and start a new company, to build an extensible enterprise productivity suite, along with a high-level open-source software development toolkit, built for the Web from the ground up.
We see this new venture as very complimentary to Facebook. We hope our products will become to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life. Our software will use Facebook Connect as the default option for identity and authentication. Our user interface will adopt many of Facebook’s conventions, creating a seamless and familiar experience for current Facebook users. And if our new development tools turn out to be useful, we hope the Facebook engineering team will come to adopt them.
Leaving Facebook makes me sad, but I feel I have to follow my passion on this. I can’t say enough about Facebook and the friends I’ve made here, and I am enormously excited for the company’s further success, a destiny I’m confident it will reach regardless of my participation in it. Finally, I’m really grateful to Mark, Chris Cox, Sheryl, Yishan, Chamath, Elliot, and others, who’ve been helping us make this a smooth transition, and to my family for guidance and support. Thank you; it’s meant a lot to me.
And the email from Moskovitz:
At various times in our progress, people have come up to me to deliver a now familiar question: “did you ever imagine Facebook would be this big?” And I give a familiar answer: “well… yea, actually”. Frankly, Mark and I knew even at the beginning this was something the world needed. We went into the college market as a stepping stone – identifying dense nests in the graph that would lead us to the rest of the world. We could see far enough in the future to know there would be an impact, we just didn’t know exactly what it would be. Now I can look back on our progress and see the ways the world has changed, the ways we have changed it. We’ve altered the future in a score of ways, from making it easier to look up phone numbers and email addresses to making it more difficult for terrorists to isolate impressionistic youth in the middle east. At the same time we’ve built a competent and vibrant organization, driven by a passion to push the world more open.
In the process of helping to build a company, I found I had another passion: making companies themselves run better. It’s easy to confuse this with a desire to manage, but even when I tried to do that I found myself drawn back to code for the solutions to my problems; I didn’t want to construct efficiencies, I wanted to engineer them. Communication is the key to scale in any size organization and technology is the key to communication. I’ve seen us unblock ourselves time and again with new tools to increase transparency and passive information flow and many times it was the fruit of my own labors. While working on improving Facebook’s tools, however, I came to a very difficult conclusion: doing this for all the companies of the world was not the same project as doing it for one of them. This idea is one that needs an organization that was built to do it, with every fiber of its DNA engineered in a way that producing an extensible enterprise platform becomes little more than the logical consequence of an organism executing its own nature. Further, the things we’ve scoped for Facebook’s product team to do are the right things to be doing and I wouldn’t have agreed with asking the company to divert significant resources to approach a project so different and so boundless in scope. Every time we introduce something new, we do it at an opportunity cost and this is too large a detour to take when we are already moving swiftly in the right direction.
And Facebook is moving in the right direction. When Facebook has a billion members (and 800 employees? maybe 900?) and someone leans over to ask me if I ever imagined it would get that big, my answer is going to be “you’re damn right I did. how come it only has 20% of the market?”. To know that this is Facebook’s future and decide not be a part of it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it’s allowed me to have a broader perspective for the future. Like you, I’ve worried about the people leaving the company but it took becoming one of them to understand that this is just another part of the ecosystem (you should just take my word for it though). I’m not leaving the movement – I’m becoming a new part of it. The inevitable flux of the men and women behind these organizations is what moves the industry forward in the same direction in a way that cross-company collaboration alone never will. As the world moves to modular stacks and applications built up from a smorgasbord of platforms instead of single toolkits, then the companies that build the parts will need to act more and more like cooperative teams in a single larger organization. As Justin would undoubtedly say, I am simply viewing the industry from a different level of abstraction. These changes are difficult and sad, and that’s certainly an understatement for me… but change brings new things and this particular change will bring a new ally to our mission – I think we can all be pretty pumped about that.
Whether I work here or not, I’ll forever bleed Facebook blue. Facebook has been my passion and my purpose for the past 5 years. Our new project is not a replacement for what we build here, but instead both a complement and a compliment, and we have every intention of making it feel like a natural extension of Facebook’s product and purpose. Similarly, my timing in leaving is not an indication that I have lost faith in our ability to succeed, but an affirmation in my confidence in the company’s enduring success irrespective of changing faces.
Justin and I going to be around for at least another month and I am really looking forward to going deeper on this idea with everyone and how we can continue to work closely with Facebook. I’ll always be really proud of the work we’ve done and grateful for the opportunity to work with such a uniquely remarkable team. We’ll also be at the Q&A later to help continue the conversation right away.
Dustin
Always some $#!T going on at Facebook…lol
That will be one company to watch for sure. The lessons learned at Facebook taking it from a small startup all the way to what it is today will allow this new company to make great leaps and bounds.
It is awesome to see the entrepreneurial spirit play out.
Congrats and best of luck.
Cheers – Eric
your nuts……
…are on your chin?
Hey Dan can you elaborate?
You’re nuts!
Ahh O.K. thanks Danny.
I agree the company could be extremely successful. I see a lot of companies in the enterprise space and they always seem to have decently exciting innovations. At India’s premier startup event, i saw this company, Deskaway – reminded me of Facebook. Mostly because of the ‘im good to look at’ nature coupled with hardcore functionality. I think the new company may be just like that. I Wish it luck!
whats the real story here? were they forced out due to new management seeing they werent pulling their weight.
let’s see if they can make money, unlike Facebook!
“I was a nerdy little boy. (Not much has changed.) Starting at age ten, I would spend hours a day holed up in my room, alone or with friends, programming til I collapsed.”
Such a lie! I was in Germany he was 11 at the time and played with freaking toys!. I guess he forgot that some of the kids that played with and know who he is now.
Were they pushed out like the rest of the execs by the Washington DC style backstabbing politics of Sandberg and Schrage?
I wish I were a VC. I’d be handing it over to these guys.
So they’re basically going after LinkedIn?
Linkedin is too one dimensional. These guys are doing something very different.
Few Hints -
“As the world moves to modular stacks and applications built up from a smorgasbord of platforms instead of single toolkits, then the companies that build the parts will need to act more and more like cooperative teams in a single larger organization.”
“Efficiency-through-software was dear to his heart as well, and we would stay up til 3am raving about how shortcut keys and high-level abstractions would Change The World”
Google should be paying attention to these guys as it looks like they will be competing with Google Office products.
sucker, and let it be. This guys got big by cheating. Cheaters will be punished.
Highly doubt these guys will go after Google office products. Oracle, SalesForce, Zoho, and more is reason enough these guys wont leave their throne at facebook to take that mountain on.
duh? LinkedIn isn’t a productivity tool, dumbass
Another great site that provides these solutions for the office, is http://www.konnects.com
Mark,
I am glad to see that you got his permission to republish his note in it’s entirety. I chose to just share an excerpt before you guys published the full note.
Just curious; were you able to get the name of the new startup?
The facebook connect aspect combined with enterprise suite od solutions sounds pretty compelling and potentially disruptive to me. I like the sounds of it.
http://facerevi...kovitz-to-leave
Cheers!
Nope, no name — all the details I know are in the two messages in the post.
The company that cracks Enterprise 2.0 will be worth a fortune. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. I thought MS TownSquare used FB as a foundation for an enterprise network too. Not that I think for a second MS will be the company to crack it.
Good luck to these dudes. They have picked a great field to start up in.
Sharepoint…?
Sounds like they’re going to make a better LinkedIn (and logging in with your facebook account)
Facebook really is trying to be the universal login for the Internet
To: Dustin & Justin,
Guys, we at Blogtonix have the enterprise 2.0 platform, just let me know and we can partner with you. Time to market is the problem.
Cheers,
Vassil
Vassil,
Rule #1: Spell the name of your OWN COMPANY correctly (if you want to be taken seriously).
Apparently, time to market is not the only problem you’re having.
yeah…I was interested too, but I had to scramble all over Google, to work it out.
Whatever Dustin does, it’s going to be an incredible innovation and surely successful. I’m very excited for them and glad to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well. I bet we’ll see some great businesses come from other Facebook alumni as well. Looking forward to hearing more.
Need help implementing a system authentication system near or close to what Facebook implemented.
How can I buy such piece of software ?
While it’s never good when capable folks go, letting them use your IP (Connect, UI conventions or whatever) to take a chunk out of Linked-In’s market seems like a pretty good outcome. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Zuckerberg is an investor.
This sounds like a pile of nonsense. No one leaves unless they have to or do not believe in the mission. There’s something very fishy going on at Facebook. Hey TC — get to the bottom of this please!
@sirpee – don’t you kn0w? TC doesn’t “get to the bottom” of anything, they just print short and long stories….
your kiddin me.
somebody wants to mix facebook connector to common sense business applications in search of efficeincy?
anyone who hangs out at fb is not productive in the first place. people go to fb to waste time. now some guy wants to use people that dont want to be productive and make them productive. sounds counter productive.
CreatorLocator.com
That is inspiring! The entrepreneur passion goes over the lots of money they were making at Facebook, and that is something to admire.
inspirational {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/GW05mGVqkE_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”inspirational ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/l631VexI1x”}}}
It does not sound like they are going to be taking a chunk out of Linkedin, more like taking a chunk out of Google Office Suites, which makes more sense to use Facebook Connect.
No one can build something like Linkedin using Facebook Connect
“When I was a boy…”
Holy crap! Who the hell is this idiot?
Nobody cares, doofus.
L
Loser!
Hope you’ve cashed your options. Wait, you did have options right?
oh, this will be great for morale! “i’ve set up my options and sale schedule for november 08 through ‘11 and so am using capital to take a larger ownership position in my new startup”
wow i overlooked this earlier “When Facebook has a billion members (and 800 employees? maybe 900?)”
i think the reason he may be leaving is because of delusions . no way in hell facebook has a billion members.
The facebook guys are liars and like to exaggerate.
you guys are idiots … read the freaking quote again .. ‘ .. WHEN .. ‘
Let’s add this up. Employees selling their shares. Facebook raising debt funding. Founders leaving the company. What is going on? That is not behavior you see from people optimistic about the future.
Either Dustin got the boot or there is trouble in Palo Alto.
Dustin talks too much. Artificially inflate the mass yet have very little revenue/profit to show.
“When I was a boy…” What a TOOL!!! I am sick of these Facebook punks. I am sure when he was a boy he got his ass kicked consistently. Facebook sucks, these guys suck, and sorry, but 1 billion users…ummm I think they are delusional. People are already beginning to tire of Facebook. Can you say FAD!!!!
I think it could be brilliant…for all of us who have in a sense grown up with ‘thefacebook’ (I don’t remember what we used to do on it all the time without photo sharing…poke people I guess), give me a set of business productivity apps that are easy to use as facebook and I’ll buy it. And for the generation that thinks everything online should be free…that’s saying something
I have a question for anyone reading this: if my balls are on your chin, where’s my dick?
Facebook has definitely changed the way we communicate, especially college and high school students. I will be very interested to see how he uses his leverage at facebook to build his new site.
http://freddief...ut.blogspot.com
I must say that all of the “wow, this will surely be a success because Dustin is behind it” or “Google should watch out for these guys” comments make me laugh. Are you people really that simple minded to think that just because these guys are are Facebookies that anything and everything they touch in life will turn to gold? If so, you obviously have as much (read: lack thereof) business experience as Mr. Zuckerberg himself.
C’mon people–wake up.
How long is it going to take for you to realize Facebook is a fad – just like the Rubix Cube, and countless others consumer fads. However, i’d like to point out that unlike the Rubix Cube and the others, Facebook lacks a tiny little thing called a sustainable business model with residual profits. Heck, i’d even settle for profits at this point.
As an entrepreneur myself– i wish these guys the best of luck with their new project. For their sake, hopefully they can find some VC’s with the same kind of faith as all of the FB fanboys/girls here. I also hope they have more to their venture than plugging into facebook connect.
Hey hold on a second – you have to give the kids some credit for being part of a team that took a small social network and grew it to the size it is today. There are no guarantees that whatever they touch will turn to gold. However they have earned some street cred for building a company. As for finding VC’s as an entrepreneur you know it helps to know a few people who can listen to your idea and there are worse startups to have founded.
As for taking swings at people who believe in them – that’s not really cool either.
Cheers – Eric
I’m not trying to take anything away from them at all. I think what they ( they = FB) have done an amazing job of growing their user base. Trust me, we should all be so lucky.
That said, i would attribute FB’s success to a combination of good strategic planning and riding a wave of being “in the right place at the right time”. In their case, it was the “social networking place”.
My fundamental issue here (at least on this post) is not FB. Instead it’s the mentality that Dustin & Justin’s next start-up will be a raging, change the world, success simply because of “where” they’re coming out of. Especially when you consider that FB has done nothing in the way of building an actual “business”.
Moreover, no one really even knows exactly “what” their next venture is–save that it will target businesses using the FB connect platform.
You said it correctly when you stated that they have “street cred”. But the total value of their street cred has yet to be proven. If i recall correctly there were plenty of guys/gals with street cred back in 1.0, but in the end it unfortunately didn’t pay the bills. Nor did it pay back their investors.
I guess for me (coming from a business side where the most important numbers are not customers/clients/users), i tend to feel that these guys are milking that “street cred” to grab an easy ride from one startup to the next– all while never truly succeeding from a business stand point.
Then again–maybe i just have a different definition of business success.
Lastly, i don’t know that i would call them “swings” per se. If anything, i’d say they were soft bitch slaps..
Take Care.
Mantra of the Valley:
The first time is luck. The second time is skill.
See how many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs this applies to. Frankly, I’d rather be lucky than good because most of us don’t get to that first stage.
I think he was about to get fired…
http://gatesand...s.blogspot.com/
I love it how all the geeks show themselves and are like ‘ wow because this dude worked at this company he can make a bigger company’. Get real
1. Facebook may be popular but its free, it doesnt make anymoney
2. These guys didnt start FB all by themselves, lots of luck, lots of VC money, other people and timing played a part.
It was just the same with ex google employees or ex paypal mafia, have any of them made a better more profitable company than google or paypal at this moment ? no
If FB was such a great place, why are people cashing out right now or selling their stakes. ill tell you why , because they know their sitting on junk so trying to get out quickly as possible.
Maybe they deactivated their own facebook accounts for no reason.
Not a smart move at this time, sorry.
I love the passion exuding from their exit letters. Truly an inspiration. Good luck guys!!
Boris
http://www.thewebwar.com
If Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein happen to read this posting, I’d appreciate it if you could get in touch. We have a visual semantic technology that would be complementary with your proposed productivity suite as well as other applications. Our visual semantic technology is simple, powerful, and extremely scalable.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Rod King.
http://search.galaxyit.com
Facebook is perfect
http://kaltenba....startkabel.nl/
http://oetztal.startkabel.nl/
I agree, the Facebook team or lack of, like to exaggerate quite often. Statements
such as being a nerdy little kid who loved to program and to take over the world
has it’s audience at the comic’s books aisle! So save us all the humor and let
people know what’s really going on?
I personally think that Facebook is the lamest put together social site ever! It is
primitive how people take something as an existing technology and call it
innovation and a break thorough!
It is no different than the kid next door selling lemonade to make a buck, and
Facebook is light years aways from making head winds in technological
innovation!
So when Facebook comments on how their technology changes the world, I say,
The world of the Apes no longer exists! You are in the Future Now Buddy!
I think Facebook is a great product and they have definitely contributed quite a bit to technology and Silicon Valley. I do wonder, though, whether Facebook is evolutionary or revolutionary. I’m inclined to think that it’s more evolutionary.
The reason why this makes a difference is because it lends credibility to what Facebook actually accomplished and how much credit they really do deserve. (But, to take a step back, they have built something beyond what most of us have here.)
Here’s what he’s looking for.
http://www.qtask.com
facebook is just COPYCAT MADE BETTER
This proves how hot the online enterprise productivity domain is. Google, Microsoft, Oracle, IMB, Cisco, Adobe have all launched their web based productivity solutions in recent times. And now Facebook’s founders!