April 7, 2009 by Ciaran Laval
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Ginsu Linden has announced his departure from Linden Lab, hot on the heels of Zee and Robin, Ginsu's departure probably won't raise eyebrows.
I'm sorely tempted to speculate wildly as to the reasons for his departure, just to please Ginsu who has a dig at uninformed speculation, but that would be churlish of me.
I really don't know much about Ginsu, I never spoke to him, he rarely blogged, I saw him quoted in some interviews but there wasn't the sort of warmth that other Linden's conveyed. This isn't a dig at him, he was probably beavering away in the background working hard.
Ginsu was the vice president of corporate development, a tricky area indeed. I have no idea if he was a success or not, I'd wager he was or he wouldn't have been around for so long.
A quick look at the Linden Lab management page shows that the executive management team is starting to look bereft of the old Linden's. indeed with the obvious exception of Philip, I see only Cyn and Joe as the older brigade and we generally don't hear much from either of them.
Whether these changes are good or bad will only reveal itself in the future, Linden Lab is growing and with growth comes change. They've certainly employed people with impressive CV's over the last few months so it's not as if the big guns are jumping a sinking ship.
I'll be interested to see where Ginsu ends up, he talks of new startups and developing his own ideas. Maybe Cory, Zee, Robin and Ginsu can be their own new gang of four and develop something spectacular, although Robin would certainly appear to be busy with other projects.
Change isn't always a bad thing, for companies and indiviuals. I see no cause for alarm here, it just seems to be the mark of M on the Linden Lab management structure and opportunity knocking for Ginsu. I wish him all the best.
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Re: Another one bites the dust - Ginsu leaves the Lab
Hrmm....as I typically agree with your down-to-earth,
no-nonsense, observations,,,you perhaps cannot see the forest for the
trees at this point Ciaran... so I must either disagree or just
propose another unpopular reason for the rampant management
changes......
"They've certainly employed people with impressive CV's over the last
few months so it's not as if the big guns are jumping a sinking ship."
We can agree to just disagree on this point., --and that's fine. No disrespect to their credentials...but I wonder if any of us know what's in store for 2ndLife.
Ya think the (lovable)rats that developed this platform are leaving(have left)a sinking ship?? I mean they put those metal disks on 'lines' that lead from the dock TO the ships...but does it stop the outbound traffic?.....I think not.
Hey...Virtual Worlds will always exist...but will they be run by the code-busting-innovators that began it, perhaps not. Let's dress this old girl up and sell her off.
The recent changes over the last year or so should make this quite obvious, add the funding changes, and as said before...pigs get fatter, hogs get slaughtered.
Even the most savvy of venture capitalists know when something isn't paying off. The recent "Adult" changes are merely to position the company to be properly valuated in the potential buyer's eyes. --but don't wave
the flag too long, while the virtual battlefield has no more soldiers
holding guns... , we are but pawns, and a few are still carrying the
flag..
I forecast no gloom or doom...but to think all these
changes in upper management are strictly a coincidence, or bizzare
timing in a changing economy...well, at least say "Yeah, they may be
getting ready to unload this beast." Someone will pick up the flag,
perhaps without the free accounts, but they had their purpose too. I
suspect those that choose to remain or venture forth, -will pay more.
Let's hope someone with deep pockets gets to buy it, I'd hate to think that
so many would lose so much in real dollars/euros. But the residents
deserve a bit more in the way of disclosure in my humble...however
skeptical, opinion.
All that seem to be left are accountants and marketeaurs making policy and noise. I'm not so naive as to think a company would say, "We are selling, we hope you'll stick around and keep us looking good...as well as pay more for the privilege."
Where did the code-busting-brainiacs go? We should start a code-buster watch blog.The technical merits were always the thing anyway.
grant PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION
if (tier_due && future_unclear) {llStartAnimation(tapdance};
rinse, repeat
Maybe I should get a myspace facebook account or warm-up the old Skype before
...alas.......I truly hope it's not the case, but I fear innovation and
technical improvements left us last year. This all seems too "Let's
make all of our areas clean, we have visitors this week."
No casinos, no gambling, no adult content, no stock markets, --i never
went for all that nonsense, but if you reduce it to a chat that has 15k
prim per island for someone to go "Wow, nice textures"--and then just
text chat or voice....what the hell? heck...even television has more.
Casinos advertize, 976 telephone numbers, E-Trade, why isn't it good
for 2nd life as well? Not that I choose to participate in all of that,
but shouldn't any that wishes to be able?
We could run 15 irc servers for the price we pay...everything from aardvarks to zebras.,-- but they wouldn't have her "sexy walk", hehe... I
don't write tcl that well anyway...hey..it's entertainment....smile and pass the popcorn.
I better go pay the cable bill before Jezebel has a fit.
be well all, I smell a cooked goose.. :-) we'll just walk the dogs more often IF things go awry in time. They only thing "tricky" seems to be the way the whole thing is spun. I wouldn't be buying an island right now though. The future may be being fulfilled by someone which is getting their own pack of dogs to do what is "needed" of the team. I just wonder if the team has been informed of what the goal is. Call me colorfully mistrusting.
Peace.
Re: Another one bites the dust - Ginsu leaves the Lab
Thanks for the feedback Ahab. The way I view the managerial changes is somewhat different to your opinion, I don't think it's coincidence at all, but management was top heavy, they brought a lot of people in and it would seem that some of the older Linden's were squeezed or basically put on gardening leave. I sent Zee an email some weeks before he left with a tongue in cheek request to lower tier, he replied that that was someone else's decision, Zee wasn't making tier pricing decisions? That struck me as odd.
I wasn't going to blog about Ginsu leaving, my intent was to blog about behind the firewall solutions and how I see them leading to natural growth of new grids not managed by Linden Lab, which if it grows would leave them with the Second Life world and hey, it wouldn't surprise me if they sold it off. I see Linden Lab's future as a service and licensing provider, not as a company managing a 3D platform.
Ergo someone else will have a world running Second Life technology that allows gambling, but this is some time in the future and I'm not a clairvoyant so I could be very wide of the mark ;)
There was an article in The Times recently however that agreed with some of your points, they implied that products grow when the innovators and creators are onboard and die when the suits move in, which is where they suggested Second Life was. They may have a point.
Re: Another one bites the dust - Ginsu leaves the Lab
Only time will tell. :-)
Re: Another one bites the dust - Ginsu leaves the Lab
well, it's always about the most "tricky areas", isn't it? i'd reckon that the intra-corporate's atmosphere is not rosé at all - or do we speak about necessarily fullfiled re-organisation stuff.. urgh