After weeks of not significant developments (to my strange mind), a piece of real news. Reuters reports that founder and CEO of Linden Research Philip Rosedale has announced he plans to step down from the top managerial position. This has been confirmed by Mitch Kapor, the current chairman of the board. Rosedale will succeed Kapor as chairman, and will continue with Linden Lab in “product development and strategy.”
The article states that this is not unusual for startup companies, once they get past the early stages. The visionary CEO makes way for a more business-oriented manager, while keeping a hand in the activities of the company. Adam cites Google and eBay as examples. The article also mentions that the search for a new CEO may take some time, as they will be looking for someone who can:
- help regain the growth that made Second Life such a phenomenon for a time
- live within the (ahem) curious corporate culture that Linden Lab thrives on
- win over the Residents, who have their own…idiosyncratic view of how LL should conduct their business and govern the Grid.
The last, to my way of thinking, may be the most significant in the long run. As I mentioned in a comment to Ham Au’s early post on the question, many of the more libertarian Residents have freaked over such decisions as the famous banking and gambling bans. And this was under an “administration” that would be far looser than a more business-model-oriented CEO might be — unless that new CEO is enlightened indeed in his/her handling of the client population. Or at least is able to win the folk over to the “revised corporate strategy.”
All the fears will, of course, be speculation and nothing else until the new CEO is selected — a process that Kapor says can take anyplace from a few weeks to many months. I’m betting (and hoping) that Linden Lab will look for someone who can work in the quirky environment that has often fostered and nurtured Second Life, and who will be able to thrive in the sometimes charged Residential atmosphere over which direction the Grid is heading in.
Philip Rosedale’s own statement is on the Big Blog.
Supplemental, 2:18 pm local:
The reaction is setting in among the bloggers:
- Daikon Forge
- Jennyfur at A Real Girl in a Virtual World
- FoundRead
UPDATE, March 15, 1:20 pm:
Further blog links, now that the news has percolated through:
- Pacific RimExchange
- Phasing Grace
- Valleywag
- Mindblizzard
- GigaOM
- Reuters has put up two additional stories, one by Eric on how Rosedale faced the “Founder’s Dilemna,” and the second on reactions to the news.
UPDATE: March 19
This final update links to the March 18 issue of the Metaverse Messenger, where the story is the first above the “fold.” Requires current version of Adobe Reader!
Harper, this notion is entirely misleading: “who have their own…idiosyncratic view of how LL should conduct their business and govern the Grid.”
There are a tiny handful of extremist geeks, with friends on the original Linden Lab staff, who yes, think that it’s fine to just have the entire thing be a beta-test love-fest and crash sims and replicate objects and make havoc, but most residents want far more stability than that. And there is a small minority of extremist anarchocapitalists with blog and inworld voices far out of proportion to their tier payments who want banking, gambling and ageplay.
The overwhelming majority of people actually paying tier in larger amounts and collectively, the bulk of tier, however, want both a tighter ship as far as crackdowns on griefing, they want more steps taken to secure IP and stop texture theft and streamline DMCA notices and such, and they want land value to be secured. In other words, they are absolutely no different than the management-types who counsel the wild-eyed young start-ups, once they age up past the toddler stage, to get rid of the founding-father syndrome and bring in a grown-up.
Except..there is something to be said for a visionary product keeping its visionary methods embodied by Philip. That’s good that he is still in the loop, so to speak, although my own feeling is that he’s sort of been kicked upstairs.
It takes guts for a founding visionary entrepreneur to step aside and hand the reigns over to another. Ultimately the vision has to be more important than any individual, even the source of that vision. Of course the key now is getting just the right CEO. As a CEO myself (and no I won’t be putting my hand up!) my advice is to find someone who is not so much a visionary as a strategist. More of an organizational and strategic technician. The key to scaling an organization is in the deployment of resources: in particular creating the right environment and structures ready to meet the planned growth. So for me, I.T expertise is minor to this, what they need is a first class strategist.
http://brownblog.info/
am i missing something? i thought Philip was moving into the position of Chairman of the Board. hardly a step down, in fact, isn’t that the highest ranking person of a company? *ener hax scratches head and will be the next ceo of linden* =)