Philip Rosedale stepping down as LL CEO

Note: this entry was originally posted on Daikon Forge.

I’ve been so busy this morning chasing down every bit of info on programming a Go game (inspired by Colin’s Goban announcement) that I only now am discovering perhaps the biggest SL news item of the week : Philip Rosedale is stepping down as Linden Lab’s CEO:

As to title, I will become chairman of the board. I will be 100% involved and fulltime at Linden Lab. Second Life is my life’s work, and I am not going anywhere! I will focus on product strategy and vision, continuing to design the right kind of company, and being an effective communicator and evangelist about Second Life. As a community member, you will probably see more of me in-world.

In fact, I’ve been so oblivious that it’s already been covered three times by Reuters, as well as being mentioned by Nobody Fugazi, Massively, Dusan Writer, and practically every other Second Life related blog that I subscribe to (and several that I don’t).

One very interesting comment by Benjamin Duranske of Virtually Blind (as quoted by Reuters) :

“It is standard procedure when a company is eyeing public funding to move from “visionary” management to someone with a strong day-to-day background. I would not be surprised to see an IPO in a few months.”

I’m not sure how I feel about that idea yet. On one hand, I’d certainly buy Second Life stock, as I’ve always felt that Second Life has a great deal of (as yet unrealized) potential, and will only get better and more successful over time.

On the other hand, I’m reminded of the many recent blog posts I’ve seen regarding building a startup, and in particular this comment by Cory Ondrejka (formerly of Linden Labs) :

Rule #0: Have a Vision Driving Both Product and Company

Know what you are trying to do and why it’s worth doing. Make sure the user experience flows from this vision. Duh.

But, remember Conway’s Law.

Your organization’s structure and culture will be reflected in your products. More than that, how your company operates will shape the possibility space for products you can create, will determine what you can create. So it is critical that Conway be extended. Vision must drive organizational structures capable of realizing the vision.

With Cory now gone, and Philip no longer being CEO, I have to wonder a little at how the company’s vision is going to change. It’s a near certainty that if there is in fact an IPO, the vision will change dramatically. While that may be for the best, and may in fact result in a better platform for content creators, I have some doubts that all will be rosy.

I’ve been through the process of building up a startup company based on a vision, and have seen what happens when that vision was completely and spectacularly destroyed once the “money people” got involved. That singular shift in priorities (money was always a priority before that, just not the #1 priority) caused the very quick and utterly complete destruction of that company.

Of course, I am generalizing from a single experience, but everyone does that. At least, I do. (Apologies to Steven Brust).

Especially chilling (though very well-put) is this comment by Robert Bloomfield:

“Linden Lab’s unique business vision allows them to break plenty of rules, but they can’t ignore the basic economic forces governing corporate growth and ultimately access to capital markets. The search for a successor is going to lead to some real soul-searching about two key trade-offs in Linden Lab’s strategy. First is the tradeoff between stability of the software platform and feature-heavy construction that allows creators with tremendous freedom. Second is the tradeoff between catering to individual residents who want a new world full of fantastic possibilities for their personal lives, and enterprises who see virtual worlds (but perhaps not Second Life) as the future of electronic commerce and the virtual office. Without a tremendous influx of capital that would allow them to become all things to all people, Linden Lab’s new management will need to make some big decisions on which way to turn.”

I wonder what those tradeoffs will be, and how they will affect us “little guy” businesses in Second Life.

Gary Gygax - Rest In Peace

Note: this entry is a cross-post.

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax passed from our world yesterday, and while initially I had no intention of posting about it, I find that it keeps coming into my mind repeatedly.  I am saddened by this news, more than I would ever have thought, and I am not at all sure I understand why.

I never met Gary Gygax, I don’t know much about him as a person, and rarely (if ever) have I spent any time thinking about him, yet Dungeons & Dragons has had a profound impact on my life.  Maybe that’s it.

When I was a child, my family moved a lot.  As anyone who has grown up in a military family knows, this makes it insanely hard to form lasting friendships or a sense of stability.  By the time I had reached my early teens, I had lived in so many places that I cannot recall them all.  It is such a blur to me that I cannot, in fact, even remember my early childhood.  All that I can recall is a sense of frustration and the feeling that we always had to “start over again”.

At one point, however, we moved to the state where I now reside, and I have (mostly) remained here since.  When I was newly come into this area, I remember sitting on my porch watching some of the neighbor kids play.  They were having a great time playing some sort of “army” game, and I was far too shy to introduce myself, and making new friends was a very difficult thing for me to do.  I was so painfully shy, in fact, that I got my toy rifle from the toybox and just sat on the porch pretending to shoot the neighbor kids as if I was playing with them - only from three houses down.

One of them eventually noticed me, and much to my surprise he stood up and walked straight over with a very big grin on his face.  He introduced himself and asked if he could see my gun.  We started talking, and it turned out that he was extremely likeable and friendly, and even invited me to come over to his house in the mornings before school to play some games on his Commodore 64.  I was ecstatic.

Turns out that this fellow had many friends in the area, more than I had ever imagined any one person could ever have, and among the things that they liked to do was to play Dungeons & Dragons (surprise!).

They introduced me to the game, and while at first I thought it was kind of silly, it turned out that my new friend was a masterful storyteller with an amazing flair for really pulling people into the game.  Suddenly I had a whole bunch of friends and something fun to do with them, and we spent countless nights over the years bonding over what I originally thought was a “silly little pretend game”.

That period of my life was the brightest and happiest I can recall, and while I no longer play D&D, I still call some of those friends my brothers.  We’ve all moved apart by now, and only communicate long distance and get together a few times a year at most, but never could I imagine a better bunch of guys, and I love them dearly.

God, how I miss sitting hunched over a character sheet in my friend’s basement with a map in front of me and a Crown Royal bag full of dice and books everywhere, sipping on a giant Mountain Dew and chattering excitedly about whatever epic adventure we were on that night.  It truly was the very best time of my life.

Rest in peace, Gary Gygax.  And thank you so very much.