Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Steps Down, Will Now Lead PC-Focused VR Team Within Facebook

The co-founder and CEO of Oculus, Brendan Iribe, is stepping down from the company he helped create with Palmer Luckey over four years ago in Irvine, California. Iribe writes in a statement to UploadVR: "We've decided to establish new PC and mobile VR groups to be more focused, strengthen development and accelerate our roadmap. Looking ahead and thinking about where I'm most passionate, I've decided to lead the PC VR group -- pushing the state of VR forward with Rift, research and computer vision. As we've grown, I really missed the deep, day-to-day involvement in building a brand new product on the leading edge of technology. You do your best work when you love what you're working on. If that's not the case, you need to make a change. With this new role, I can dive back into engineering and product development. That's what gets me up every day, inspired to run to work." UploadVR adds: When we asked Oculus PR what this meant for Max Cohen, the current Head of Mobile at Oculus, we were told that, "he's still focused on mobile and growing the mobile ecosystem on Jon's team." After publication, Oculus PR also informed us of how this affects the roles of Nate Mitchell, VP of Product, and Michael Abrash, Cheif Scientist, upon further inquiry: "Nate will be leading Rift, on Brendan's PC VR team. Michael Abrash still leads Oculus Research on Brendan's team. When asked about John Carmack, CTO, and Michael Antonov, Chief Software Architect, Oculus PR informed us that, "they are both still at Oculus and they work on the mobile team. Michael Antonov is leading the Carmel and ReactVR effort today."

Oddly-applicable VR and VR business commentary

[Empiric]

Wretched is the body that is dependent upon a body, and wretched is the soul that is dependent on these two.

--Thomas

IMHO, improbable anachronisms don't get enough C-Level executive credence.

Re:

[Gordo_1]

Leave it to the Slashdot misanthropes to find the negative in everything. Facebook's Oculus Rift, which you evidently haven't even tried, is actually a pretty impressive piece of gear for a 1.0 product release. I suspect they will have a mass market version in a couple years. The people who built it are shuffling themselves a bit to get themselves beyond the startup roles they've been in since 2012. Makes sense to me.

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[Anonymous Coward]

> Oculus Rift, which you evidently haven't even tried

> I suspect they will have a mass market version in a couple years.

Derp derp derp