As mentioned briefly last night, the rumours were flying about a change in CEO at Linden Lab. The reality has eventuated with Mark Kingdon departing and Philip Rosedale returning as interim CEO.
Some obvious questions arise from this:
1. Was Kingdon aware he was soon to depart when overseeing the recent layoffs?
2. Was Kingdon even really in the loop when the restructuring was undertaken?
3. How does one claim things will improve when the now interim CEO stepped down to allow Mark Kingdon to bring a more commercial focus to the organisation? No-one is claiming such improvement at this stage, but it’s a fair assumption that the aim is for things to go up. Unless it’s part of a scale-down for buyout of course.
All that said – the change could be a good thing. At the very least it’s a temporary thing until the Lab or other future controlling influence determines what the next step is. What remains certain is uncertainty – which can’t help Linden Lab in the short-term but with luck it will assist in the all-important longer term.
It is truly a Second Life birthyday to remember. Welcome Home Philip!
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Little Lost Linden
http://thebotzone.net
As resident, I certainly not going to cry for the dismissal of Mark. From a World of Illusion, Hope and Forward-looking, we fall in the Kingdom of Darkness. Lets see if Phillip can bring us back what made SL a real place to be… Please Phill, switch the light back on.
None of this matters. It's the tier prices. SL will continue to bleed as long as those remain as they are.
I think what we're seeing here is denouement of a failed experiment in greed. I'm only speculating, but I suspect that what happened in 2007-8 is that some LL VC saw the hype and wanted $$$. They pressured LL to move to a more business orientated model and when Phillip wasn't able to deliver/resisted he was pressured to leave and was replaced by someone more business-savvy (amenable to the VCs thinking).
Clearly SL is not a solution to a problem that many businesses have, so inevitably this move failed. This failure placed SL's very existence in jeopardy. Especially in the wake of the abandonment of the community that had made SL such a raging success to begin with. Now Phillip has been returned as interim CEO (much like Jobs was at Apple) in order to save what is left.
Unfortunately, I suspect the result will be a day late and a dollar short. We'll see.
Well, remember that while Philip might be back 'on' now, he is presumably going to go back 'off' again when a replacement CEO is found.