Peter with metaverse producer Ana Alves at Linden Lab office in 2011
Woke up to New World Notes' first work day of 2018 to read this bittersweet e-mail from Linden Lab spokesperson Peter Gray:
"After about a dozen years doing marcom in the virtual worlds/VR space (starting way back in '06 as part of Linden's external PR team), it's time for a new adventure, and I'm excited to be moving on to join Facebook's comms team for AI."
Great news for Pete, though myself and no doubt many readers will be sad to see him go -- he started at Linden Lab shortly after I left, and he's been the company's main public-facing figure through many company transitions, including a major layoff in 2010 and four CEOs. (Philip Rosedale, Mark Kingdon, Rod Humble, and currently, Ebbe Altberg.) I'm not entirely surprised he's going to Facebook, seeing as numerous senior Lindens have made that leap too. It's an exciting (and scary!) time for AI in Silicon Valley, so he'll have his work cut out for him there.
As for who'll replace Gray to deal with Linden Lab communications, for the short term at least: "[Requests] will go to several members of the marketing and community team, and who will handle each will may depend on the topic at hand," he tells me.
Pete passed along this personal message of thanks to New World Notes readers and the Second Life/Sansar community at large:
"I'm not sure if anyone else has been doing marcom in the virtual worlds / VR space longer, but 12 years is a pretty long time (in the tech world, at least). What's helped to keep it interesting, exciting, and rewarding all these years is also a big part of what made becoming a Linden appealing in the first place: the enormous range of stories to tell. I'm grateful to all the SL and Sansar users who are doing such interesting and creative things with our platforms, and in particular to those who have gone out of their way to share their stories over the years. "
I won't be shocked if Facebook's AI projects have some overlap with Facebook's social VR projects (many lead-developed by Linden Lab alum like Jim Purbrick) -- in which case, we may hear from Pete soon. Meantime, if you're in the Bay Area and like alt rock somewhere in the Muse-ish/Strokes-ian spectrum, you may want to follow the indie band Pete plays guitar and sings for: The Butterfly Knives.
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