My Mixed Reality Interview With Philip Linden: Talking Developer Frustrations, Plateau Phase, And Why Silicon Vallley Should Still Care About Second Life

I did this mixed reality video interview for The GigaOM Show last Tuesday with GigaOM's Chris Albrecht and Philip in San Francisco, and me in Austin-- roughly 48 hours before he announced Philip's imminent departure as CEO.  (Starts at about 3 minutes in, after Chris covers some recent tech news.) We conducted the SL portion on Laukosargas Svarog's legendary island of Svarga. Among other topics, we discussed Second Life's current plateau phase (Philip attributes that in part to a disproportionate rise in new accounts), 3rd party developer frustrations with the SL platform and lack of a production roadmap (Philip accepts some fault there, and says this will be improved), and why Silicon Valley should still care about Second Life (Philip emphasizes its transformative value.)  Knowing now that he was days away from making his dramatic announcement, do you see anything in the interview that suggests the end of his CEO was nigh?  And what do you think of his answers?

Comments

[Razrcut Brooks]

Excellent job of asking the tough questions to Philip instead of softballs. I think his answers were honest and even he admitted frustrations at time with SL. Yet, he mentioned the big picture and seemed genuinely certain that SL will continue to grow. He rebutted your stats with other stats which seem to indicate SL is still relavant. (eg. the milions of US dollars that are still trading hands among SL residents.)
Giving himself a promotion to Chairman and allowing a new mind to run the day to day operations of LL is not "shocking" . It is a smart business move not out of necessity, but out of luxury.