Update: March 10th, 2024: The management team list is back up on the corporate About page.
In 2021 and 2022, Linden Lab made two fairly high-profile – in terms of the company’s management team – hirings; both of whom recently departed the company within the same time frame.
To take them in order of joining the company, Andrew Kertesz, a 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, arrived at the Lab as the new VP of Engineering in July 2021 to replace Scott Lawrence (Oz Linden). In doing so, he took the name Mojo Linden.
It is not unreasonable to say his impact was immediate and positive. Openly engaging with user through the various user groups – notably the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) and Third Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meetings, as well as popping up from time-to-time at Simulator User Groups.
Three of his major user-facing contributions to the platform comprised a push to overhaul and improve the viewer’s performance; encouraging the adoption of industry-recognised standards (the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification); and pausing the development of the Lab’s efforts to develop an initially limited (“chat centric”) mobile app, in order to determine if a more comprehensive mobile solution might be developed (what we now know as SL Mobile). He was also keen to eliminate much of the platform’s technical debt – such as moving the simulator code to 64-bit architecture and to try to leverage technical options that hadn’t actually been around when SL first opened its doors.
The other hiring was that of Steven Feuling, who joined the company in May 2022 as Linden Lab’s first ever Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), alongside of Peter Capraro, who became the company’s first Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Taking the name Styfy Linden, a major part of Mr. Fueling’s focus was, according to Business Insider, to help Second Life to start to expand its user-base once more. In this he worked closely with Brett Linden, the Lab’s VP of Marketing. He also saw his role not only in marketing and promoting Second Life within market sectors relevant to the platform (e.g. the content creation sector) to b ring new users in, but also in trying to both enhance the events-driven appeal of SL through partnerships with external organisations and through direct engagement with existing users to encourage their ongoing retention.
Styfy certainly wasn’t as much a “public” figure as Mojo in terms of user visibility – he did appear in a Lab Gab session for 2022’s SL20B celebrations (which I summarised here); however, his influence – alongside of that from Brett – would seem to have been key in the formulation of projects such as the Motown Experience and Welcome Hub.
While the Lab may have something of a bumpy reputation as an employer in some quarters, it is true that a lot of the staff there – particularly among the management team and who are directly responsible for the platform’s operation and services – tend to be with the company for years at a stretch. As such, I was particularly surprised to find Mojo Linden was no longer listed as part of the company’s management team, and nor was Styfy.
Admittedly, it took a big of digging to find this out; some time between January 15th, 2024 and now, information on the Lab’s board and management team has been removed from the company’s About page (or at least, that’s been the case while I’ve been poking at things over the last couple of days; maybe there’s just been a bit of a SNAFU and said information will reappear).
Anyway, using the Wayback Machine, I was able to confirm that both Mr. Kertesz and Mr. Feuling were listed as a part of the management team on December 25th, 2023, but by January 15th, 2024 their names had been removed. On discovering this, I ran a check on their in-world Linden accounts, and both have been deactivated (as is the company’s policy when personnel depart).
If I’m honest, I had wondered as to Mojo’s whereabouts a couple of times of late; his absence from the CCUG meetings had become sufficient enough for me to notice (he was by no means at every meeting, but had a habit of dropping in perhaps once and month – or close to that). However, I just assumed he was focused on other projects, and its not as if his departure has caused the wheels he helped set in motion seize up.
Obviously, people and roles do not always work out; the CMO role at the Lab was brand new to the company, and it is possible that given LL’s size, it became recognised as a square peg / round hole situation. Similarly, leading figures within organisations can be poached away / become tempted by opportunities they spot elsewhere. As such, the departure of two senior staff from the Lab in what appears to be fairly close order might be coincidence more than a sign of Something Going On, even if finding out did cause an eyebrow to do a Spock.
Certainly, I’m not going to speculate on the ins and outs because I don’t want to feed into any conspiracy theories that might be doing the rounds (in relation to this or anything else). It will be interesting to see – if possible, assuming the management team info doesn’t reappear on the corporate website – if either post (particularly that of VP of Engineering) gains a new face (again, assuming there has not been any internal promotion to the position in the interim).
Instead, I’ll simply wish both gentlemen well in their respective futures, and also thank Mojo (should he ever read this!) for taking the time to engage with users and in responding to nagging enquiries from the likes of myself.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 