Gowalla Founder Josh Williams Is Leaving Facebook, Plans To Pursue New Project In San Francisco

Flickr/kk+In December 2011, the talent behind location-checkin app Gowalla was acquired by Facebook. The app itself was wound down over the next few months.

Now, a year and a half after joining Facebook, Gowalla's founder and former CEO Josh Williams is leaving.

Williams joined Facebook as a product manager where he worked on Pages, Location and Events. Gowalla launched before Foursquare but only ever reached a few million downloads. Foursquare now has 30 million downloads and billions of check-ins, although it hasn't had a smooth ride either.

Williams, who moved from Austin, Texas to join Facebook in Palo Alto, says he'll remain in San Francisco to pursue a new project.

"No comment on my next steps at this point — beyond that I plan to stay in SF and work on something new," Williams told Business Insider. His last day is this Friday.

We reached out to Facebook about Williams' departure and are awaiting official comment.