Lars Eilstrup Rasmussen is a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

computer scientist, technology executive, and the co-founder of

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

.He was the director of engineering for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

in London.Hutcheon, Stephen
Why I quit Google to join Facebook: Lars Rasmussen
''The Sydney Morning Herald'', 1 November 2010. In early 2003, Lars and his brother Jens co-founded a mapping-related startup, Where 2 Technologies, which was acquired by Google in October 2004. Rasmussen became the head of the Google Maps team and worked at Google until joining Facebook in late 2010.

Qualifications

In 1990, Rasmussen graduated from the

University of Aarhus Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. He gained his MSc in Computer Systems Engineering from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

in 1992. Rasmussen began his PhD, working with

Mark Jerrum Mark Richard Jerrum (born 1955) is a British computer scientist and computational theorist. Jerrum received his Ph.D. in computer science 'On the complexity of evaluating multivariate polynomials' in 1981 from University of Edinburgh under the s ...

and

Alistair Sinclair :' Alistair Sinclair (born 1960) is a British computer scientist and computational theorist. Sinclair received his B.A. in mathematics from St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1979, and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Edinbur ...

in the

Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science The Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science (LFCS) is a research institute within the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It was founded in 1987 and is a community of theoretical computer scientists with in ...

at Edinburgh, then moved, with Sinclair, to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, USA. He received his PhD from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1998, for his thesis "On Approximating the Permanent and Other #P-Complete Problems".

Where 2 Technologies and Google Maps

In 2003, Lars and his brother, Jens, with Australians Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma, co-founded Where 2 Technologies, a mapping-related start-up in Sydney, Australia. This company was bought by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

in October 2004, to create

. The four of them were subsequently employed by Google in the engineering team at the company's Australian office in Sydney.Sutter, John D.
The genius brothers behind Google Wave
CNN, 27 October 2009. Lars and Jens are also the originators of the

Google Wave Google Wave, later known as Apache Wave, was a software framework for real-time collaborative editing online. Originally developed by Google and announced on May 28, 2009, it was renamed to ''Apache Wave'' when the project was adopted by the Ap ...

project.

Facebook

On 29 October 2010, Rasmussen announced that he had left Google, and was moving to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to work for

. At Facebook he was, among other things, the engineering director for the

Facebook Graph Search Facebook Graph Search was a semantic search engine that was introduced by Facebook in March 2013. It was designed to give answers to user natural language queries rather than a list of links. The name refers to the social graph nature of Facebook ...

project which is a

semantic search Semantic search denotes search with meaning, as distinguished from lexical search where the search engine looks for literal matches of the query words or variants of them, without understanding the overall meaning of the query. Semantic search seek ...

engine for the social network. In 2013 he and Tom Stocky were listed as number 79 in ''The 100 Biggest Stars In Silicon Valley'' by

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German pub ...

. Rasmussen had been working in the Facebook London office.

Music start-up

On 27 April 2015 Rasmussen announced his departure from Facebook to co-found a music start-u
Weav Music Inc
with his partner Elomida Visviki. Lars Rasmussen has since moved to

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

and became an angel investor.

Awards

On 19 October 2010, Lars and Jens Rasmussen were awarded the

Pearcey Award The Pearcey Awards are a set of prizes presented annually since 1998 by the Pearcey Foundation for achievement in the Australian ICT industry. Pearcey Award Categories Each year, the Pearcey Foundation presents 3 categories of award: ;Pearcey ...

for NSW ICT Entrepreneurs of the Year. In 2020, Rasmussen was named the recipient of the Green Oaks, Libertyville, Mundelein, Vernon Hills Chamber of Commerce second annual Stephanie Smith-Howard Volunteer Heart Award.

Investments

Rasmussen has made personal investments in a number of technology startups including

Canva Canva is an Australian graphic design platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations. The app includes readymade templates for users to use, and the platform is free and offers paid subscriptions such as Canva Pro and ...

, an online design tool; and Posse, a point of interest-based recommendation service.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasmussen, Lars Living people Google employees Facebook employees Aarhus University alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Danish computer scientists Danish expatriates in the United States Danish expatriates in the United Kingdom Danish company founders Danish expatriates in Australia Year of birth missing (living people)