Oculus VR Executive Leaving Facebook -- WSJ
October 23 2018 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Patrick Thomas
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 23, 2018).
Oculus VR co-founder Brendan Iribe announced over social media
Monday that he is leaving Facebook Inc., the latest in a series of
executives to exit from the company.
"What a ride! We made science fiction into reality and inspired
a new industry in the process," Mr. Iribe tweeted Monday
afternoon.
Mr. Iribe serves as vice president of computer-tethered virtual
reality for Facebook. He left his role as chief executive officer
of Oculus in 2016.
Facebook said Nate Mitchell, also an Oculus co-founder who had
been leading Oculus with Mr. Iribe, would take over the newly
vacated role. The company said Mr. Iribe is expected to stay on
through mid-November to help with the transition.
Mr. Iribe was chief executive of Oculus VR when Facebook
acquired it in 2014 for more than $2 billion. Another Oculus
co-founder, Palmer Luckey, left Facebook in March 2017 after a
series of disputes with the company.
In a Facebook post, Mr. Iribe said this will be his "first real
break" from work in more than 20 years.
His exit comes not long after the departure of the WhatsApp and
Instagram founders, who likewise sold their companies to Facebook
for large amounts and ultimately chafed in their roles as part of
the social-media giant's empire.
Oculus was founded in 2012 by Mr. Luckey, who was home-schooled
and got his start in tech repairing old Apple Inc. iPhones. He
raised more than $2.4 million from a Kickstarter campaign to help
fund development of the company's first product.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he sees virtual reality as
the next major computing platform.
Oculus has had a troubled history within Facebook since the
sale.
Facebook and its co-defendants, including Mr. Luckey, last year
were ordered to pay $500 million to ZeniMax Media Inc. after a jury
found the social network's Oculus VR unit unfairly used ZeniMax
code to build a virtual-reality headset.
Last month, Facebook introduced a new device, called the Oculus
Quest, that is designed to deliver high-end VR content without the
need to be tethered to a computer or game console. The goal is to
give Facebook a bigger share of the nascent virtual-reality gaming
market, where it has previously trailed Sony Corp.'s PlayStation VR
by a wide margin. The Rift sold about 400,000 units last year
against 1.6 million VR headsets sold by Sony, according to IDC
estimates.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 23, 2018 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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