Cory Ondrejka Coming Back to Linden Lab Too? (Updated: Ondrejka On Rosedale's Return & Cory's Non-Returning)

Now that Philip Rosedale's returned to Linden Lab management, could that mean Cory Ondrejka, his former Chief Technology Officer from Second Life's founding days, is coming back too? That's a question several readers have asked me, and to judge by the latest post on Cory's blog, others are asking him that too. "For some reason," he says, coyly linking to Philip's return announcement post, "there has been some questions about what I’m up to these days." He reports advising for at least four startups, all of which seem intriguing, though none have any evident relationship to Second Life or virtual worlds. (Though one of them, Togetherville, is a virtual community/social network for kids and adults.) Tantalizingly, Cory also mentions working on a project with folks at Bessemer Venture Partners, which possibly hints that he has a startup of his own in the works. (Or he could just be advising for VCs too.) None of this, of course, precludes Cory Ondrejka coming back to Linden Lab in the near future, but at the moment it sure seems unlikely.

Update, 2:55pm: Just heard from Cory Ondrejka directly via email. His reply to this question in full:

"Haven't spoken with Philip since the announcement. Exciting to see him return as interim CEO -- he and the board definitely made the right call -- but I don't know what his plans are.

"I don't have any interest in returning to Linden as CTO."

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

Dance cards can be changed. But I won't speculate. LL could look to the entertainment business for talent as well.

I just hope we don't get a bulldog driving a bulldozer through the SL economy chinashop stupidly destroying what used to be making a decent amount of money.

The new search, despite some improvements, is not yet totally fixed so the business attrition/exodus that commenced in April continues. There continues the problem of the DMCA take-down challenge LL has. My hope is LL develops a more efficient system to run directed graph queries to let the IP team trace illicit content and disable it more quickly and effectively and LL develop a technical means of documenting repeat willful infringers and eliminate them from SL (requirement for safe harbor) more quickly. As opposed to economy muzzling draconian policies a number of people that want LL to eliminate competition are calling for.

[Ann Otoole]

Oh and I hope whoever is in charge tasks the UI team with creating a subscriber interface and system to allow us to run our twitter, plurk, and facebook account messaging from inside SL in a manner that it appears to be group chat IM sessions. Then I can be in SL and not have to window out all the time. Shouldn't be that hard to do.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

I would not come back in his position either. He seems happy enough and engaged in all sorts of interesting things; good luck to him.

[Kimberly Winnington/Gianna Borgnine]

Thanks for getting us the official comment. I'm disappointed, but I can still dream :) Best to Cory in his other endeavors.. he is missed.

[Kimberly Rufer-Bach]

"I don't have any interest in returning to Linden as CTO."

Ah, but in some other role, perhaps? ;)

[Daniel Smith]

I hope he succeeds at what he is doing, and continues in that vein. He was not an effective leader at LL, did not do enough to address stability issues, and left us with a half finished language (LSL). I can think of a couple of much better candidates (one from the X3D community), but I wont mention names here.

[Prok]

"I don't have any interest in returning to Linden as CTO."

Which leaves the door open for a return as hippy copyleft griefer loving czar or some other prosition.

[Phoenix Psaltery]

Ah, the bubble bursts. A renewed Philip/Cory LL would have been nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a swell idea. Let's put the CTO and CEO who had "irreconcilable differences" according to the CTO's leaving blog post back together in the same company.

Look, Hamlet. I know you're buddies with them, but there's no need to be such a sycophant.

[Frans Charming]

It is not really Hamlet's idea, many people where asking for Cory to return too after Philip. It was mentioned often on Twitter. Because of that reason I blogged about it as well yesterday:
http://secondslog.blogspot.com/2010/06/will-cory-ondrejka-return.html

[Isadora Fiddlesticks]

Well, Philip's interim CEO anyway, so there's still hope for CEO for Cory? I'm one of those people too who are hoping...but as long as they look for someone who possess the balance of Philip's passion, charisma, and community and M's marketing, professional and organizational skills.

It's a tricky balance, to be sure, but I wonder...is it possible? If Apple had one Steve Jobs, can't LL have one as well?

[Chimera Cosmos]

I was one of those who was asking Cory on twitter about a return to LL.

This was his tweet to me and Frans and others letting us know he had posted on his blog about it.

CoryOndrejka Jun 27, 8:04pm via Brizzly
what I'm up to http://bit.ly/aUvHrM (for @frans, @phaylen, @DelindaDSL, @ldinstl_chimera, and others)

A couple of years ago or so I ran across a blog post by Cory on the 1 year anniversary of his leaving. It was clear that it was still a painful memory even a year later. He said he was fired in an email. I think that 's common knowledge.

I sat next to Cory all day at Metaverse U at Stanford in February 2008. He was one of the speakers. I was star struck the whole time. :-)

Would have been cool to have him back.

I commented on @frans blog post too - his is well worth checking out.

==Chimera Cosmos==

[ColeMarie Soleil]

Cory rocks mkay bye

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Cory will always be Woz in the extended analogy to Apple we like to make. Of course, from all reports, Philip's a far nicer fellow than Steve Jobs. Which ain't hard, most Apple fanatics will concede.

Would have been nice to have Cory back, even if only to make Prok gnash her teeth in frenzy while I ate popcorn and yelled at the monitor, like some virtual WWE smack-down. Funny little closed universe we SLers inhabit, isn't it?

My academic colleagues in Folklore are even now readying publications about the demons, angels, trickster figures, and heroes of SL.

[Luna]

Wow, "coyly", "tantalizingly", "intriguing"... why not stop gushing over Cory... just call the guy up and ask for a date, already?

It is right to recognize the groundwork that Cory made in the development of what we all love(hate!) today about Second Life, he was integral to its creation, but Cory was also on the front line of trying to opensource everything and eliminate any created content security (except for lsl scripts, of course).

All the stuff we love about Second Life, rich designs, awesome content, things to do and experience - these would not exist any more if Cory had had his way. A framework is important, but if you have no content with which to fill it, you end up with an environment like virtually all the open sim projects have. And There. :)

Of all of the forays into virtual worlds, only Second Life allows its residents to create whatever they can imagine, be recognized by fellow residents by way of purchases and offer protection of their content through permissions and reporting, flawed as that system may currently be. At this point practically any content you see on the open grids is stolen from Second Life in the first place.

And please, Cory is not a Woz - Wozniak stayed out of all the policy debates and just worked on making a great system. Cory made a point of trying to exert his will to promote his own agenda for Second Life with no concern about the greater community. Cory did not understand that the magic to SL's success, even in the midst of all the recent upheaval, is the power of the full community working together, with contributions coming from all different areas.

This mosaic is the only reason SL continues to succeed where others fail, and hopefully with the change of leadership, we are going to see a renewed focus on making sure the community needs are still being met while trying to expand the access to more people.

[Adric Antfarm]

Oh yeah? Well I heard this one kid drank some cola and ate pop rocks and BOOM!

The last thing Second Life needs right now is this crap and big blogs spew it the most to their willing audience.

Unrealistic expectations of heroes coming to save the day cheered on by a peanut galley while damn near ignoring things IN SECOND LIFE like SL7B will kill Second Life, not help it.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

@Luna--agreed about the Woz/Cory parallel.

My point, however, is that for his admirers Cory fits the "genius who left early" in our ongoing analogy to Apple Computer.

[Crap Mariner]

I spent a year in the hospital getting stitched back together for drinking soda after eating pop rocks, Adric... years of rehabilitation and intense therapy... hell, when someone pours out Rice Krispies and milk, I wet the bed... DAMN YOU, ADRIC! DAMN YOU FOR MOCKING MY PAIN!

-ls/cm

[June]

Adric: Not a big blogger, but have a suspicion they didn't cover much of SL7B for the same reason I'm not writing any more than a review of the live music that was about. Sometimes if you can't say anything nice, best not to say anything at all.

[Kimberly Rufer-Bach]

Ignatius wrote: "My academic colleagues in Folklore are even now readying publications about the demons, angels, trickster figures, and heroes of SL."

Ooh, that sounds cool! I'll be keeping an eye on the SLED list for links to these publications when they're available.

[Adric Antfarm]

June, that is wrong and you know it.

SL7B has many great builds and you owe an apology to those who put time into it.

[Flying Spaghetti]

Cory? Any interest in coming back as the CEO then? :)
with Philip resigning and acknowledging your visions for the future was perhaps the right one...