Philip Rosedale - "I'm starting a new company"

In a dramatic turn of events, Linden Lab Chairman Philip Rosedale has announced that he will still be chairman, despite no longer working full time for Linden Lab. This raises the obvious question of: "What the hell is he getting paid for?" but more importantly it raises the question: "What the hell is going on?"

The announcement was made in this blog post. Philip, known for his dodgy moustache and non prim hair was rather vague in his announcement but I get the impression he has another dream in the works, hopefully not linked to electricity, unless it involves those flying boats from Neil Gaiman's Stardust, which would be rather cool and impressive.

Philip tells us: "It's a big idea - something that actually depends on Second Life existing to get started, and that I have been thinking about almost as long as I've been thinking about Second Life.  I don't want to try to explain the idea here, because it is a decision I've just made and honestly I don't think I can do a good job describing it yet.  But I did want to tell the whole SL community, because I don't want you to worry that anything is wrong."

A bit late there, panic will be setting in somewhere in the world. I don't like this, it feels wrong and like when Robin left, there's a huge void being left here within Linden Lab and one I can't see them filling. Philip is a dreamer, we need people like that at the heart of Linden Lab, it helps to keep it unreal. That helps to balance out the corporate types.

However there seems to be a theme with these older Lindens, they seem to love startups. Robin is now with another startup completely detached from virtual worlds, whereas Philip seems to want to start something again. Maybe this is what excites these guys and when it all gets stuffy they lose their enthusiasm and creative thinking. However they do leave a hole in the world of Second Life and it is a gaping hole at that.

However the Second Life World doesn't stop spinning, it will evolve in its own way, without its founding Father it seems and we all owe a lot of thanks to Philip for bringing this creation to life. I will be very interested to see what he creates next, I hope it's something fun and interesting and takes a direction that differs from the direction Second Life is taking. When Philip warned us not to hold on too tight to how Second Life looks, I didn't think he meant he'd be looking for the fire exit, I'm not sure he meant that either.

There's no need to man the lifeboats yet, we'll have to see what M comes up with now.....yes that is worrying isn't it!