"FarmVille" Co-Creator Now on a Stealth Startup

Sizhao “Zao” Yang, who was only too recently employed by Zynga, has moved on to launch his own startup, the stealth-mode BetterWorks.

Yang was part of the team that created blockbuster social/casual game FarmVille. He was CEO at MyMiniLife, the company Zynga acquired and the company that originally developed FarmVille, which then became one of the most successful games in its class.

Now, Yang, acting as COO of BetterWorks, is embarking on a much a wildly different pursuit. No more games: His new company promises to “make work rewarding.”

Exactly what that means yet isn’t clear; we’ll have to wait for Yang and his co-founder and CEO Paige Craig to give us more product details over the months to come.

What we do know is that BetterWorks will help business owners make work environments more rewarding for employees, quickly and affordably. Business owners are invited to sign up for beta access on the site; the company’s also hiring engineers and other employees now.

This is quite a way for Yang and Craig, also an angel investor, to start the new year. The company’s third co-founder is George Ishii, a Yammer() co-founder and recent Kiva fellow.

Their company will be based in Santa Monica, adding to the ever-more-promising group of Southern California startups.