Facebook may be about to launch what some have perhaps over-excitedly described as the headline-grabbing “Gmail killer”, but it will do so without the help of Google alumnus and FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit.

Readers with short-term memory will likely recall that Mark Zuckerberg took on the mighty talent of Buchheit – the man who created Gmail, built the first AdSense prototype and coined Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto – when Facebook acquired FriendFeed in August 2009.

The Los Angeles Times was first to report his departure on Friday.

In an interview with the paper Buchheit said he had no involvement in Facebook’s so-called “Gmail killer”.

“One of the downsides of having worked on something like that [Gmail] that was notable is that everyone keeps expecting that you are going to work on that again," said Buchheit. "I have very little desire to work on e-mail again in the future. To me, there's a lot more interesting stuff out there." ®

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