Former Oculus CEO and company co-founder Brendan Iribe has left his post at Oculus parent company Facebook, following in the footsteps of fellow co-founder Palmer Luckey’s 2017 departure.
Iribe, who had most recently headed up Oculus’ PC VR division, shared news of his departure in a Facebook post today, explaining that he sees the move as “the first real break I’ve taken in over 20 years” as well as “time to recharge, reflect and be creative.”
“So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July 2012. I never could have imagined how much we would accomplish and how far we would come. And now, after six incredible years, I am moving on,” said Iribe.
“I’m deeply proud and grateful for all that we’ve done together. We assembled one of the greatest research and engineering teams in history, delivered the first step of true virtual presence with Oculus Rift and Touch, and inspired an entirely new industry. We started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can’t even envision.”
Iribe, alongside Luckey, Nate Mitchell, Michael Antonov, and Andrew Scott Reisse, founded Oculus in 2012. He joined up with Facebook when the social media company acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014 and served as the CEO of Oculus up until December 2016 when he moved instead to lead the then newly established PC VR group.
Update: It’s worth noting than an anonymous source speaking to TechCrunch claimed that Iribe’s departure from Facebook follows an internal conflict in the company’s virtual reality arm, which saw the cancellation of its “next generation ‘Rift 2’ PC-powered virtual reality headset” that Iribe had reportedly been leading development of.
A spokesperson from Facebook followed up, saying that PC VR is still part of the company’s product roadmap for the future, and that much of what Iribe and his team had been working on will be included in future products.