[UPDATED] Was Cory Linden fired, or did he quit?
by Moo Money 
Dec 11th 2007 at 8:17PM
Filed under: News items, Second Life, Politics
I've been hearing rumors about one of Second Life's dear leaders, Cory Linden (aka Cory Ondrejka), Linden Lab's CTO. Apparently he didn't see eye to eye with Philip Linden (aka Philip Rosedale), LL's CEO, about the engineering direction. Either way, he quit, or Philip fired him. Care to clarify, Linden Lab?Tateru Nino recently did a piece on Philip's mission statement blog entry. It seemed to come out of nowhere and maybe this has something to do with it. We'll keep you updated as we know more!
[8:47pm EST] I have obtained a copy of Philip's email that he sent to his employees, which you can read after the jump ...
Cory is going to leave LL. He has been with us for 7 years, and was the fourth person to join. So this is a big deal. Cory has been a huge part of the company, having designed big parts of SL, hired many people, contributed greatly to the culture, and given a powerful voice to SL and LL. Among other things, he had the original design idea for the love machine, single handedly wrote the scripting language, and got us all doing A&Os back in 2001. Losing him will be hard for the company. I will miss him a lot. What's worse is that ultimately his leaving is my decision.
Cory and I have differences in how we think Linden should be run, differences that in the past few months have become irreconcilable. These are tensions that were more manageable when we were smaller, and there have been times that they have helped us do great work together. But now, as we change and grow as a company, I feel that we need a different set of strengths in engineering leadership. I strongly believe that this is the right decision, although not without pain, for both LL and Cory. Of course, I'm not going to go into the details of these differences. This is one of those times when, in having me as your leader, you will also have to trust me in my decision. I will hold a brown bag as soon as possible to talk about this with anyone who would like, and will schedule time both in-world and in person here in San Francisco. Please send any external questions you get about this change to Robin who will make sure they get answered.
Philip
[UPDATED 9:15 PM] Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) responds to the departure.
[UPDATED 9:45 PM] Cory's reply to Philip Linden's mail
[UPDATED 1:30 AM] Our very own Tateru Nino looks at What this departure means for the future of Linden Lab
[UPDATED] It was confirmed that Cory Ondrejka was fired, or forced to resign.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Prokofy Neva said on 9:32PM 12-11-2007
Good job scooping this story, moo, I guess the Herald slept through this one, and all I did was predict something like this a year ago:
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2006/12/my_predictions_.html
My guess was that it was about Googlizing and open-sourcing Second Life faster than it could really prudently go.
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MarkTwain White said on 2:17PM 12-12-2007
Speaking of your 2007 Predictions. I remember this one:
7. The new Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, will meet the leader of North Korea,k Kim Jong-il, within Second Life, and avert a nuclear holocaust. The two will play golf in Hollywood. Philip Linden will beg to be their caddy. I'm serious. This will happen. You heard it here first! And please, don't be dissing me on this, it's true: Kim Jong-il has a collection of 20,000 James Bond tapes and the like in his pleasure palace. He's probably already *in* Second Life on an alt as we speak. So it's really not at all farfetched.
I have a confession to make.
Marc said on 1:11PM 12-12-2007
Nahh, it means that LL is in serious trouble. I give SL a year, if that. The big entrepreneurs are cashing out. They are done.
JP said on 10:42PM 12-11-2007
Maybe Cory thought LL should provide some sort of customer service or run itself ethiclly. Clearly this is not the direction LL has chosen to go in.
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Joshua Meadows said on 9:46PM 12-11-2007
Prokofy, go away.
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Gwyneth Llewelyn said on 9:47PM 12-11-2007
Prokofy, your guess is as good as any other guess ;)
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subatomicdog said on 11:56PM 12-11-2007
So sayeth the Bill O'Reilly of SL....go stroke yourself elsewhere. 8P
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Toussaint said on 12:50AM 12-12-2007
Predicting a high level employee of tech oriented business will leave in the next year is like predicting it will snow in International Falls this within the next year.
But don't let that stop you (Prokofy) from bragging up this "prediction" on any forum or blog that still allows you to spout your cockamamie pablum.
On the actual TOPIC, I think this is a good thing, and the next thing that should happen is that Philip should step away from the machinery himself, and let people whose minds aren't clouded by starry-eyed naivety run things.
Robin should go too. New blood, because this baby is stagnating bad.
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Marc said on 1:14PM 12-12-2007
Clearly this shows that LL is in touble. It is time for a new virtual world. SecondLife reached is course and it is now spinning down fast. Big residents are cashing out. Firing Cory may make Philip Rosedale feel good, but it means that his luck has run out.
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Marc said on 1:14PM 12-12-2007
This means that LL is in serious trouble. I give SL a year, if that. The big entrepreneurs are cashing out. They are done. This firing may make Phil feel good, but it marks the end of his success with SecondLife.
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Marc said on 1:14PM 12-12-2007
Nahh, it means that LL is in serious trouble. I give SL a year, if that. The big entrepreneurs are cashing out. They are done.
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Prokofy Neva said on 3:44PM 12-12-2007
Touissant, if one of your own had made this prediction, you'd be trumpeting it. I merely pointed out that I did predict it, and it's precisely because ventures like this with idealistic pioneers always end up having to give up their vision at some point to normalize, and that can bring clashes among the founding fathers. Think Will Wright and Maxis and Electronic Arts, for example.
I don't see why Robin should leave at all, my God, she's the only grown-up there and has had to handle all the most difficult public tasks like lawsuits and verification and much on her own, especially with the customers.
I don't see why Cory's departure spells doom, which is something that I know some other Lindens and their fans who have left are promoting as a concept too. There's always another guy to buy the island. There are plenty of other virtual worlds, but this one is special and has more to offer and will continue to do so.
I hardly think Philip would fire Cory "to feel good"; maybe he just needs to find someone who can take direction.
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Stu said on 6:03PM 12-12-2007
Whether he was 'fired' or decided to leave is really irrelevant. At Cory's level, when a firing results from irreconcilable differences, it doesn't mean the same thing as when a normal employee is fired due to incompetence or negligence. It's much more interesting to ask (and find out, definitively) about the nature of the disagreement.
While we can speculate, I really wish Philip and Cory would agree to be transparent about the nature of the disagreement, outside of any contracual or legal obligations that they must adhere to.
They have both implied in some way that it was a disagreement about the future direction of the company. Second life has the media attention and 'mindshare' that's necessary to grow into the fundamental VR platform of the future. However, if the "invitations go out", and the party sucks, they run the risk of burning through that 'advertising capital' without leveraging it in a way that benefits the company, the customer base, and ultimately, the world.
So the specifics of their disagreement, especially if these disagreements are around the current readiness of the SL platform (in terms of scalabilty, feature set, managability, etc.) prior to any major expansion of scope, are far more relevant to SL-ers.
On one hand, you're never completely prepared for the next round of expansion. It's healthy and natural to have some anxiety around any major shift, but you can't let it stop you from growing. Risk adversion has sunk many companies after their initial successes.
On the other hand, there are some fundamental elements of Due Diligence that customers expect, prior to any major shift in direction, architecture, etc. Ignoring these fundamentals has sunk many companies after their initial successes.
Hopefully, one or both of them will share further details about this 'difference in future direction' when things calm down.
Stu
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Lem Skall said on 12:06AM 12-13-2007
"Of course, I'm not going to go into the details of these differences. This is one of those times when, in having me as your leader, you will also have to trust me in my decision."
It sounds like even LL employees may never find out what the differences were, so what chance will we ever have of finding out? And that's a shame.
I am disappointed with both of them for not being able to work together, so badly that they can't even make this final decision in common accord and Philip has to make it unilaterally. It is a failure for both of them and neither one even admits it. I, personally, would respect them more if they did. I am especially disappointed with Philip. IMO, a good leader does not call himself a leader and especially doesn't say "you will have to trust me". No one "has to" trust anyone, trust is a very sensitive thing that should not be taken for granted and statements like that can only erode trust.
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