Facebook's Vice President Mike Vernal Says He Will Now 'Take On A New Challenge,' Joins Sequoia Capital's Venture Team

Mike Vernal, an 8-year veteran of

that he will leave the company and become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. Vernal was Facebook's vice president of search, local and developer products. In a Facebook post he reminisced about Facebook's 50 million user base when he joined the company. "In one of my first company meetings, Mark [Zuckerberg] casually mentioned what we'd need to do 'when we hit a billion people,'" he wrote. "At the time, I thought this was ludicrous. Let's get to 100 million first, right?" Vernal will join the venture team at Sequoia Capital and work alongside other tech executives turned venture capitalists, including Bryan Schreier - an ex-senior director at Google. "His experience scaling engineering, product, and design teams at Facebook will be invaluable to Sequoia founders working to build similarly transformative companies," a Sequoia spokesman

"One of the most important things I've learned at Facebook is that a small team of people with vision and drive can change the world," Vernal also said in his Facebook post. "Sequoia Capital has a long history of helping small teams create some of the most impactful companies in the world, including Apple Inc., Google, Airbnb, and WhatsApp. While I'm sad to leave Facebook, I'm excited to join Sequoia and work with a new wave of bold, driven, and visionary entrepreneurs."