Master of verbal dexterity ex-Linden Research Chairman Mitch Kapor stopped by Cornell's Metanomics session last Friday. This would be an exciting thing if one could ever get Mitch to use the English language in a real life way to actually answer questions about recent management developments at Linden and the company's future direction. However, he was predictably and characteristically vague and evasive when asked direct and pointed questions from smart people. Here is a recap of the session from Robert Bloom the organizer and Roland Legrand;
http://metanomics.net/17-mar-2008/mitch-kapor-comments-philip-rosedale "Mitch Kapor comments on Philip Rosedale By Robert Bloomfield - Posted on March 17th, 2008: Most followers of Metanomics probably know that Philip Rosedale has stepped down from his position as CEO of Linden Lab. Mitch Kapor, who is the current Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab, was in Second Life to give a keynote speech as part of UBM Think Service's Life 2.0 conference. That gave me a chance to ask the following during the Q&A session:
Do you have any comments on the change in Philip Rosedale's position, and your stepping down as Chairman of the Board of Directors? Along similar lines, what can you say about Linden Lab's short-term and long-term strategic plans?
Mitch's response was largely what you might expect. Here is my attempt at paraphrasing:
When the company started nine years ago (and I started seven years ago), we knew is was likely to be a long-term undertaking to realize the underlying vision Philip had. It is very unusual for the person who is the founder and visionary to remain the CEO forever. (Bill Gates is an exception). At some point the demands of running the ongoing business become a position very different from the that needs to be played by a visionary founder and spiritual heart of the company. That said, this is Philip’s life’s work, he intends to stay and contribute. Finding a CEO is a bit like a marriage…you want to find someone where there is trust and complementarity. I will no longer be Chairman of the Board, but I will remain just as actively involved as ever.
Mitch declined to comment on the short-term and long-term strategy of the firm, leaving that to Philip and the other members of the management team. However, he closed with this rather tantalizing comment:
Keep your seatbelts fastened, because it is going to be exciting!
Hmmmm......
He also left us with this gem:
A company like Linden Lab faces insurmountable opportunities."
http://www.mixedrealities.com/ ‘IPO Linden Lab not under active consideration’
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Linden Lab, the company which runs Second Life, is not under active consideration, chairman Mitch Kapor of Linden Lab told the audience of the Metanomics show in Second Life. It remains a strategic possibility, but it is not under consideration meaning that there is no work being done on for example a timetable for such an operation. Asked by a member of the audience about the rumour that Google would be interested in taking a participation in Linden Lab, Kapor said that he did not know about such a rumour. Kapor was interviewed by professor Robert Bloomfield (Cornell University) and made it very clear that Linden Lab is in a new stage of its development. Bloomfield reminded the audience that during the last months several important changes took place at the company: the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Cory Ondrejka left, unregulated banking was banned, Philip Rosedale said he will step back as CEO to become chairman of the board, and the branding policy of the company became much more strict. Kapor, who became famous as the co-founder (together with Jonathan Sachs) of the Lotus Development Corporation (1982) and who is an important member of the open source movement, said that is was normal for a start-up to see important changes when the company enters a next stage. Kapor explained that Second Life has some first mover advantages. It has a real business, makes money, and has a deep understanding of the industry. But Lotus 1-2-3 was at the time not the first mover, and actually the advantage of being a first mover can be overrated, Kapor warns. Those who come in second often have a much shorter learning curve. So being a first mover “must not become a liability”. There are some very important challenges for the company: the stability and the user experience. That user experience does not come close to what is needed for a mass adoption. There is also the threat of the intense competition in the sector. The opportunity however is enormous. Kapor underlined that virtual worlds are a disruptive innovation just like the pc was. Just as in the case of DOS in the early days of the pc, it takes a lot of time and effort to make such a huge platform user friendly. It took 15 to 20 years to go from DOS to Windows. Linden Lab also needs the management structure and the financial means to invest not only in work being done on the existing platform, but also for work on a much more fundamental level, to get to that necessary level of user friendly functionality. While Kapor is very enthusiastic about the business applications of virtual worlds, he does not want to belittle the consumer side. Once again he referred to the pc, which is an important tool for businesses but also for personal consumer use. Asked for some explanation about the revenue model, Kapor told the audience that right now the hosting business is the most important source of revenue. The future will bring other revenue sources, and this should not be contradicted by the movement towards open source. Businesses will pay for the installation, configuration and security-aspects of virtual world platforms. Kapor warned however that these are opportunities, but that many competitors will be in the market to grab those opportunities. Hence the need to run Linden Lab as a real business.
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