Having helped to make the current wave of VR technology a reality, Palmer Luckey is departing Oculus and Facebook, with today his last day working at the company he founded.
Facebook issued the following statement:
Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer’s legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.
Whether his own decision to leave or being pushed out the door by Facebook, a large part of the decision will almost certainly centre around Luckey’s recent controversies. Last September he was outed for having links with the Nimble America political group during the US Presidential Elections, a pro-Trump organisation that specialised in inflammatory memes, to which he have donated $10,000.
Not only that, but Oculus lost a major court case in February, with a ruling in favour of Bethesda and ZeniMax as the jury found that Luckey and Oculus had breached a non-disclosure agreement, with a sum total of half a billion dollars to be paid to ZeniMax as a consequence.
Source: UploadVR
MrYd
So he had an idea, got others to do all the work, got a big pile of money for selling it all to Facebook and then leaves?
I’m guessing the past few months of acting like a dick and supporting the orange-faced shit-gibbon was part of some cunning plan to by pushed out by Facebook. Possibly they wanted him hanging around for years while the legal shenanigans play out. Useful to have someone to blame. It’s not just did he jump or was he pushed, there’s the third option of “making someone push him”.
Or perhaps he’s just an idiot who likes a big bag of money for doing nothing much.
ron_mcphatty
I like your ‘orange faced shit-gibbon’ phrase! You’ve probably already seen this but after a hard rant involving the gibbon I find this is a good way to start smiling again…
http://trumpdonald.org
Big bags of money are gooood.
MrYd
I must admit to it not being my phrase. Can’t remember where I heard it, but it’s definitely a good one. And much more polite than any alternative.
Tuffcub
You missed a few points…
“He had an idea whilst at a different company, did lots of work, left the company and took the work with hem (allegedly), set up a Kickstarter and got loads of cash to make the business, then got a big pile of money for selling it all to Facebook and not giving a single penny back to the people who supported him in the first place”
MrYd
Wasn’t it Carmack that did most of the alleged theft? In a weird “he did it, but someone else got all the blame” way?
Luckey just recycled an idea that hadn’t worked before. And had an amusing photo taken of him.