Oculus VR co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves company

One of the founding members of Oculus VR, former CEO Brendan Iribe, announced today that he’s leaving the company after more than six years. In a statement posted to Facebook, Iribe said he’s “moving on,” but did not specify where he’s headed.

“I’m deeply proud and grateful for all that we’ve done together,” Iribe said. “We assembled one of the greatest research and engineering teams in history, delivered the first step of true virtual presence with Oculus Rift and Touch, and inspired an entirely new industry. We started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can’t even envision.

“Yet, as far as we’ve come, the journey has just begun. Michael Abrash is right: ‘These are the good old days.’ Now is when we get to pioneer the foundation of the next great computing platform and medium – this is our time to be pushing the state-of-the-art onward and upward. Every part of VR and AR needs to improve, especially the hardware and core technology, and Oculus has the best team in the world to do that. Although we’re still far from delivering the magical smart glasses we all dream about, now they are nearly within our reach.”

In his statement, Iribe added that he’ll be taking a “break” to “recharge, reflect and be creative.”

Iribe co-founded Oculus VR in 2012 with Palmer Luckey, the original founder and designer of the Oculus Rift, chief software architect Michael Antonov, VP of engineering Jack McCauley and VP of product Nate Mitchell. Iribe’s role at Oculus changed in 2016, when he stepped down as CEO of Oculus to lead its PC development division. Luckey left Oculus, and its owner Facebook, in 2017.

In a report from TechCrunch, Iribe’s departure from Oculus is said to be tied to “internal shake-ups” at Facebook that led to the cancellation of a new PC-powered VR headset and differing views on the future of Oculus.