Reply to comment

Update: Philip Linden's official blog entry. See also comments for other articles.

This just in via Reuters - Rosedale to step down as Linden Lab CEO:

SECOND LIFE, March 14 (Reuters) - Linden Lab Chief Executive Philip Rosedale said on Friday the company he founded has begun a search for a new CEO with more operational and management expertise.

Rosedale will become chairman of the Linden Lab board when his successor is found, replacing Mitch Kapor, who will remain a board member and the company’s largest investor. Rosedale said he will also keep a full-time role at the company working on product development and strategy.

“This is my life’s work,” he told Reuters in an interview. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m still full-time on this, probably for the rest of my life.”

Second Life’s growth has slowed after a period of rapid expansion. Rosedale’s replacement will face the difficult task of regaining that momentum, working within Linden Lab’s idiosyncratic corporate culture and winning over Second Life’s impassioned users.

The shift from a visionary founder to an operations-focused CEO is typical for technology start-ups, with eBay and Google as prominent examples. A recent Harvard Business Review study found that 50 percent of founders were no longer CEO by year three, 40 percent remained by year four, and fewer than 25 percent led their companies’ initial public offerings. Rosedale, a former chief technology officer at RealNetworks, has been CEO since founding Linden Lab in 1999...

So who will be the new CEO? As the article ends:

...Linden Lab is using an executive search firm to find a new CEO, a process that Kapor could take “anywhere from soonish to many months.”

“Legally, the board hires and fires CEOs,” he added. “Process-wise, this is going to have be someone Philip is incredibly enthusiastic about.”

Honestly - this looks good. In a way, it is the end of an era - but some say that the era ended a while ago. The truth is that a visionary can plot a course, and it takes a visionary to make something out of nothing. Whatever misgivings I may have about Linden Lab, one thing is readily apparent: Second Life is here.

With the changes in culture apparent at Linden Lab, from being more responsive to user needs or as simple as updating the blog more often, Linden Lab has shown it is consolidating. This appears to be a part of that large process. I fully expect that Philip may be giving a sigh of relief as well - now he might be able to spend more time playing instead of working.

So long Philip. Thanks for all the prims. Come on over and party and enjoy what you helped build. And hire a good replacement, would you? :-)