Oculus is restructuring to accelerate its plans, creating a PC division led by Brendan Iribe, previous CEO of Oculus, and another mobile with Jon Thomason at the helm.
Below are the words of Brendan Iribe where he explains the decision and the new Oculus strategy:
“Virtual reality went from science fiction to the most exciting and innovative consumer technology. Oculus has gone from shipping development kits to introducing virtual reality to millions of people with Gear VR and launching the immersive power of Rift. Just last week, we got our hands inside the experience with Touch.
I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve created, not just the products but the culture and the team. We have brought together an extraordinary group of people with a common passion to build the best virtual reality. And the most exciting part, is that this is just the beginning. Facebook is committed to working on virtual reality for the long term, which means creating the next great computing platform that allows people to experience anything with whoever they want and connect the world in new ways.
Changing the world at that scale has also required us to scale Oculus at great speed. With our growth and product strategy, we have decided to create two new groups of PC and mobile to be more focused, strengthen development and accelerate our plans.
Looking to the future and thinking about where I have more passion, I have decided to lead the PC virtual reality group, taking forward the state of virtual reality with Rift, research and computer vision. As we have grown, I have really missed being involved in the day-to-day creation of a new product at the forefront of technology.
You do your job best when you love what you’re working on. If that’s not the case, you need to make a change. With this new role, I can get back involved in product engineering and development. That’s what gets me up every day and inspires me to go to work.
Jon Thomason, who has recently joined Oculus, will lead the mobile group. Together we will work with Mike Schroepfer, CTO of Facebook, to find a new leader for the Oculus team.
I’m thrilled to be on the front lines in creating virtual reality’s next big leap forward. We will continue to invest deeply in research and development of computer vision, displays, optics, graphics, audio, input, and more to create the breakthroughs that will unlock new products and experiences. We are going to move faster to solve the great challenges of virtual reality.
I would like to thank everyone who has accompanied me along this fantastic journey. We’re going to push VR beyond the limits of what’s possible today, and I couldn’t be more excited to run to work every day and build the future of VR with all of you.”
Brendan Iribe is one of the founders who together with Palmer Luckey formed the Oculus team in 2012, and who has maintained his position as CEO since then. Regarding Luckey, who has been estranged during these months due to his association with a political group, it has been confirmed that he will continue in the company and that his new position will be announced soon, according to The Verge.
