Second Guard: Who are the Puppet Masters?
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It is of course, easy, to blame Kingdon for resident unrest and the recent RIF. After all, Kingdon, who was appointed CEO by the lab’s board of directors on April 22, 2008, has been summarily removed just a little over two years later. Notwithstanding the fact that he certainly made his share of mistakes, missteps, and bad choices, startup CEO’s still tend to be little more than puppets . The question of course remains, "Who are the puppet masters?"
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What this episode covers
The metaverse has been a buzz over the employee shake-up at Linden Lab. First with a June 9th announcement of a 30% staffing cut (RIF), followed by a June 24th announcement that CEO, Mark Kingdon would be stepping down, founder and past CEO, Philip Rosedale will stand in as interim CEO, and CFO Bob Komin will be assuming the additional role of COO. A sigh of relief can almost be heard throughout second life, on forums and in blog posts, as second life residents and alumni alike anticipate the results from this shake-up. Hoping that Philip will revive his original vision of Second Life… a vibrant, "your world, your imagination" virtual landscape where some have made names for themselves, established virtual companies, and, in some sense, re-enacted, at a micro-scale, the heady days of the dot-bombs. It is of course, easy, to blame Kingdon for resident unrest and the recent RIF. After all, Kingdon, who was appointed CEO by the lab’s board of directors on April 22, 2008, has been summarily removed just a little over two years later. Notwithstanding the fact that he certainly made his share of mistakes, missteps, and bad choices, startup CEO’s still tend to be little more than puppets . The question of course remains, "Who are the puppet masters?" The metaphorical changing of the guards is all too common in the Bay area. During the dot-bomb days, executives changed companies so often, that they seemed to be engaged in a game of musical chairs. It was quite interesting watching and trying to predict who was going where next. Whether it was Sun MicrosystemsW, Oracle_CorporationW, GoogleW, YahooW, NetscapeW, or AOLW playing swap the executive, or other less-known companies changing out their executives for more well-known names from the Valley’s who’s who roster. Back then, media outlets such as cnetW, Wired<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="From Wikipedia the definition of: Wired" style="font-family: Georgia...
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