Craig Walker — co-founder of GrandCentral, the San Francisco-based startup that was acquired by Google (s goog) in 2007 and eventually became the underpinning of Google Voice — is leaving the company. Vincent Paquet, the other GrandCentral co-founder, is going to stay with Google and will be taking over the Google Voice helm. Walker is joining Google Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence, where he will work on his next big idea.
Walker, formerly CEO of DialPad Communications (acquired by Yahoo (s yhoo)) is a life-long entrepreneur, so I’m surprised he’s stayed with Google for three years and not gone off to start something new. I’ve heard he planned to leave the company in July 2009, but decided to stay longer, perhaps waiting for his next big idea.Having known Craig for a long time, I’m excited to see what he cooks up, especially now that he has Rich Miner (of Android fame) for company.