Looks like Rosedale is resigning as CEO of Linden Labs: http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/03/14/exclusive-rosedale-to-step-down-as-linden-lab-ceo/
Do you think this will hurt or help LL? Sometimes organizations struggle when a visionary leader steps aside...
Reading the comments at that article, it appears that a lot of them are pleased by the news. It is apparent from reading the article that something at LL needs to change. The number of new users to SL is declining and it seems that a lot of current members are becoming dissatisfied with SL. I think that in times like these, a change in leadership can often be a good thing. It can bring in a lot of new ideas and perhaps greatly improve SL as a whole. And Rosedale will still be around in case it doesn't...
ReplyDeleteDennis - I think one of the things Rosedale tried to stress is that he won't be "stepping aside" ... but rather he is freeing up his schedule to deal with only the problems of "vision" for the company.
ReplyDeleteAs Brandon noted, I have seen a lot of grumbly comments in different blog posts and articles I have read. Most of these have to do with scaling up the operation - these are technical and logistical operations, which weren't Rosedale's strong suit. They need to nab someone who handled large-sized problems at Google or Yahoo or the like - if they do this could work out well, especially becaue I'm sure Rosedale has a lot of ideas he just hasn't had time to work on.
This breaking story basically means that there is a problem in the company and a solution is needed as soon as possible. The number of returning and new users has decreased and major companies like Coca-Cola have decided to move their virtual environments to other portals. Maybe be this shake-up in the structural organization could make the company redeem itself over new competitors.
ReplyDelete“The shift from a visionary founder to an operations-focused CEO is typical for technology start-ups, with eBay and Google as prominent examples”. I am not sure about this, but as I remember, Google and Ebay started restructuring their organizations when their companies were in their highs. Their companies got popular too fast, and the founders didn’t have enough expertise to manage and lead such growing businesses. Am I right?
As I understood from the article, Linden Labs is currently looking for a more business oriented person to take over as CEO. I really don’t think they have a business problem. Their problem is simply technological.