On Tuesday, May 5th, Linden Lab announced that Senior Vice President of Product Operations, Patch Linden (known in the physical world at Eric Nix), is to depart the company after some 20 years.
No precise reason for his departure has been given, other than the fact it comes as part of a reorganisation of the Product Operations and Customer Success divisions, both of which have been under his remit.
Patch originally joined Second Life as a resident user in 2004, running his own business in-world. In September 2007, he officially joined the Lab as a support agent, rising to a support liaison. From there he moved to the Concierge team, and was gradually promoted to manage that particular team. Following this, he shifted his focus to the role of Operations Support Manager for around a year before joining the Product division, which has the responsibility for defining the features, etc., found within Second Life.
Whilst a part of the Product division, Patch developed the Land Operations team, which includes the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW). He also became the prime mover with the Land Operations team and LPDW in establishing and expanding the Linden Homes offerings for subscriber users, and developing the Bellisseria content land (and water) masses.
In 2018, he established the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 2020 he oversaw the move to larger office space in Atlanta, which was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and then in 2019, he was promoted to Vice President, Product Operations.
In this role he became part of the troika of Senior Vice Presidents (along with the Senior VP of Product and the Senior VP of Engineering responsible for overseeing Second Life’s continued development on behalf of the company’s most senior management and board. As Senior VP of product Operations, he has been responsible for managing some 5 teams, including the LDPW.
Path has generally enjoyed popularity among many Second Life users, often appearing at public and special events – such as Meet the Lindens sessions at the Second Life Birthday celebrations, as well as the likes of the annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) event, and has been featured in a number Lab Gab sessions. As such, he will be missed by many.
Whilst the blog post implies Patch will be departing the Lab, a check on his account in-world suggests he may already have actually left (or at the very least, the Patch Linden account has been “retired”), as it appears to be no longer available – which is generally a sign an employee has left the company. However, whether he has departed or has yet to, I wish him well in his future endeavours.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Interesting.
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I just had a chat with Patch on Discord. I’ve known him for many years, and it honestly makes me pretty sad to hear he’s leaving Linden Lab. He was always helpful and genuinely focused on solving problems in the best interest of the users, on and off duty.
I’ll never forget that one time I was dealing with a full-blown griefer situation. Someone had flooded the entire Blake Sea area with those insanely loud Mario Brothers items. I ended up dragging Patch out of bed early in the morning, and without to hesitate he pulled a team together within minutes. Next thing you know, we were out there clearing the area together.
And the crazy part: at that time he was already Vice President, yet he still took the time at 4 or 5am on a weekend to personally handle my issue. That says everything.
He’s going to be very hard to replace. Wishing him all the best for whatever comes next.
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Good Luck in new journey!
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“.. it comes as part of a reorganisation of the Product Operations and Customer Success divisions…”I imagine the restructure comes as a result of his departure, not the other way around.
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