Brandon Iribe leaving Oculus after reportedly clashing with management, Rift 2 cancelation

Mark
Zuckerberg (left) tries the Oculus-powered Gear VR headset with
Brendan Iribe (right).
Facebook

• Oculus cofounder and former CEO Brendan Iribe
  announced on Monday that he would be leaving
  Facebook. 
• A Facebook spokesperson did not give Business Insider an
  explicit reason for Iribe’s departure beyond saying: “He’s taking
  time off for the first time in 20 years.” 
• According to a TechCrunch report, however, Iribe had
  grown increasingly frustrated with the Facebook executive team,
  especially after last week’s cancelation of the “Rift 2,” which
  he had been leading. 
• Iribe is the second Oculus founding member to leave Facebook
  in the last 18 months. 

The cofounder and former CEO of Oculus is leaving the
company. 

Brendan Iribe, who served as Oculus CEO until 2016, announced
on Monday that he’s “moving on” from the virtual reality
company he helped found, which was bought by Facebook in 2014.

“So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July
2012. I never could have imagined how much we would accomplish
and how far we would come,” Iribe said in a Facebook post
announcing his departure. “And now, after six incredible years, I
am moving on.” 

Nate Mitchell, an Oculus cofounder who has been heading the
Rift and PC organization with Iribe at Facebook, will remain in
his position and continue leading the team. 

According to a
TechCrunch report, Iribe had grown increasingly frustrated
with the Facebook executive team, especially after last week’s
cancelation of the “Rift 2,” a PC-powered virtual reality
headset that he had been heading the development of. Iribe
and Facebook had “fundamentally different views on the future of
Oculus that grew deeper over time,” a person familiar with the
matter told TechCrunch. 

TechCrunch also reports that Iribe did not want to be a part
of a “race to the bottom” when it came to performance. 

A Facebook spokeswoman did not give Business Insider an explicit
reason for Iribe’s departure beyond saying: “He’s taking time off
for the first time in 20 years.” The company is planning a
future version of the Rift, and this was not the reason for
Iribe’s departure, she said. 

On Twitter, Facebook’s vice president of VR Hugo
Barra praised Iribe:

Iribe is the second Oculus founding member to leave Facebook in
the last 18 months, after
Palmer Luckey left in March 2017 amid controversy, which
included a $500 million intellectual property suit brought
against Oculus and its cofounders. 

Outside of Oculus, Facebook has had a string of high-profile
departures in recent months, including Instagram cofounders Kevin Systrom
and Mike Krieger, and WhatsApp cofounder Jan
Koum.