Pathfinder Linden’s Lab Position Poofs
by Alphaville Herald on 10/03/10 at 2:42 am
Pathfinder Linden announced today that his game god position has gone missing, leading the longtime Linden Lab staff member to consider other opportunities. The unfortunate news was made public in a post to the Second Life Educators mailing list, continuing a pattern staff turnover as game emperor M Linden’s cadre consolidates their positions of power in the wake of the departure of Second Life founders Philip and Cory Linden.
Pathfinder is apparently a victim of an internal game god reorganization – his announcement said in part, "Due to recent reorganizations at Linden Lab, my current position (Evangelist, Market Development) has ceased to exist. There are no alternative positions available to me, so as of March 12th I will be leaving the company".
As for the future, Pathfinder is keeping his options open saying "I am not sure what the future holds for me, but it will probably involve something at the intersection of online communities, virtual worlds and neuroscience. I will be remaining open to new opportunities."
Speculation about the Lab’s next move was the order of the day in-world, as members of the performing arts world were concerned at the loss of a patron. Other residents questioned the net present value of Torley Linden’s contributions to the Lab’s bottom line and asked if continuously parroting "friendly greetings" counts for more than Pathfinder’s contributions.
best friends Prokofy Neva and Pathfinder Linden party down (file photo)
Meanwhile, both Prokofy Neva – a close personal friend of Pathfinder,and Plexus Linden were unavailable for comment.
Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia
Mar 10th, 2010
Pathfinder is one of the good ones. It’s sad to see him go.
I wonder if this means he’s considering a position at Love Machine, inc.:
“I am not sure what the future holds for me, but it will probably involve something at the intersection of online communities, virtual worlds and neuroscience. I will be remaining open to new opportunities.”
Antonius Misfit
Mar 10th, 2010
Prok, a close personal friend of Pathfinder’s? With a “friend” like this…:
“@Pathfinder I have to say I’m not sorry, and I’m glad you’re nanotech neurosci loonyness is going to be kept far away from this space”
–http://twitter.com/Prokofy/status/10253744446
Wayfinder
Mar 10th, 2010
The only thing I know about Pathfiner: he’s been around SL a long time, I’ve only had good experiences with him, he was always polite to me, we never crossed swords. That’s saying quite a bit.
I’m not even aware of exactly what he did at LL, but… when a company starts “laying off” long-term employees, when they “cancel a position” and “no new position can be found” (in other words, FIRED DUDE!) that is strong indication of internal power struggles and Kingdon working to solidify his position.
All I know is this: Second Life management and performance in 2009 was abysmal. They ripped their customers time and again, lied through their teeth, lost 5,500+ sims and tens of thousands of customers and in the process, had their Premium user count drop through the floor (thus their current rabid effort to re-build user numbers).
Rather than learning from the ZERO-GROWTH issues of 2009, in 2010 Linden Lab is continuing to show such tunnel-vision, self-interest management and shows every sign of repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over until they drive the company into the ground. Whether this is intentional or just a bi-product of gross stupidity and cluelessness is anyone’s guess. Sometimes I’d like to be privy to secret LL conversations, the ones held behind closed doors, in which the REAL reasons behind Linden Lab decisions are discussed.
I have a very strong belief that if the truth of LL goals and methodologies were known, customers would hit them with a major class-action lawsuit faster than a sim can crash. Whatever their motives, Kingdon is giving every indication (true or not) of being a power-hungry, greed-based corporate rader that couldn’t really care less about the existing SL population.
So when people like Pathfinder leave SL, I have only one thing to say to them: good for you. You’re leaving the sinking ship before it sucks you down with it.
masa
Mar 10th, 2010
Way back in July of 2005, Plastic Duck had group land in Waterhead which fell to me when he got banned, and one day Pathfinder came by and stole it from me. When I asked him about it, he said he would give me land in one of the neighboring sims instead, but he never did.
I won’t forgive you, Pathfinder!!
Dr. Egghead
Mar 10th, 2010
His loss is felt by the educators who have been bitch-slapped by LL since at least the time M’s legal goons issued a cease-and-desist against Jokay Wollengong (whose work LL was concurrently promoting). She and a handful of us started to migrate to Reaction Grid at that point–but it’s so buggy that the the exodus has been slow.
Other educators simply reduced their investments in SL.
Pathfinder’s departure adds evidence for a few claims. First, that LL has little interest in promoting education for the potential cash-cow that it could be (ask Blackboard, which gets 50K plus annually from many schools). It would be odd to dump him otherwise; after all, Pathfinder brought in the entire 20+ UT system for a one-year test in SL. That made some real money for LL, but, evidently, not enough for M’s liking.
The second claim is a little scarier to those who use SL for projects not easily moved elsewhere: that LL is overstaffed and needs to save money. If they begin shedding employees, teachers had been have a Plan B in case the world poofs. Blingtards can always go to IMVU. We eggheads would have to go back to…what? Paper? MOOs and MUDs?
In the end, who the hell knows? It’s like Apple cultists trying to get inside the company’s opaque culture, only to have Steve Jobs make some bizarro announcement at a conference.
Dr. Egghead
Mar 10th, 2010
Ahem…that should be “teachers had better have a Plan B”…dammit, you sniveling grad-student slaves! I’d not have made this error had I been properly awake!
Where’s my coffee on a silver tray? Where are my fawning proofreaders? Where’s my smoking jacket? Sigh.. the academic life is sooo difficult.
Natty Cioc
Mar 10th, 2010
Beginning of 2009 LL established a “Ecosystem of Support” especially for educators, starting with the SL Education Support Faire ( http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire ).
Pathfinder was the head of this support team. Canceling this job during a reorganization sends imho either a clear signal that education needs are now lower prioritized or/and LL has to reduce their manpower due to a crisis situation.
After the failure to attract enterprises for SL they neglect now the hyped educators target group? Which target audience is left over?
btw, a question to the SL-economic/TOS-gurus: What is happening in case of a LL-bankruptcy with the exchange from L$ to US$? Is it possible that they decide to pay only 0.00001 U$ for 1000 L$ from one day to the other?
They act like a financial institute, and here in my country every bank has to pay into a fund to guarantee the pay-out to their clients in case of a bankruptcy.
Same question for land: Is there a guaranteed compensation for the purchase price of land in case of closing the service?
Danziel Lane
Mar 10th, 2010
“After the failure to attract enterprises for SL they neglect now the hyped educators target group? Which target audience is left over?”
To attract enterprises for SL, you would have to offer privacy, which means encrypted communication and sims that cannot be looked in by any other … including the Lindens.
You cannot attract companies to have their conferences and classes in at a place that is open for every spy (hehe, or for wannabe police groups).
So the total freedom of SL to go anywhere (which I like so much) is not, what companies want for their conferences.
“btw, a question to the SL-economic/TOS-gurus: What is happening in case of a LL-bankruptcy with the exchange from L$ to US$? Is it possible that they decide to pay only 0.00001 U$ for 1000 L$ from one day to the other?”
Read the TOS. LL does not buy L$, you always buy from other residents. They guarantee nothing. So the exchange rate would be:
0,00 US$ for 1 billion L$.
“They act like a financial institute, and here in my country every bank has to pay into a fund to guarantee the pay-out to their clients in case of a bankruptcy.”
All you purchase from SL is server space (if you have a sim) and the entry to the system. Only thing that could be refunded would be account costs, if you paid for a year in advance.
There is nothing else that LL could you pay out for.
“Same question for land: Is there a guaranteed compensation for the purchase price of land in case of closing the service?”
Land is nothing but renting some server space. In case of bankcuptcy you would have no access to that server space from next week on, so there would be no need to pay the next bill.
rbl
Mar 10th, 2010
let it never be said that Prok won’t spit on a casket at a funeral.
someone, please, have that woman committed. before someone gets hurt.
Marx Dudek
Mar 10th, 2010
http://images.plurk.com/28351_f936cac67843ed93b2fec3864a56ebab.jpg
Gundel Gaukelei
Mar 10th, 2010
@Natty Cioc
“btw, a question to the SL-economic/TOS-gurus: What is happening in case of a LL-bankruptcy with the exchange from L$ to US$?”
LOL! You are so innocent. In that case, your toy money will cease to even exist. In fact it never did, because according to the TOS, its not money but rather “a limited license right available for purchase or free distribution at Linden Labs discretion, and ist not redeemable for monetary value from Lindenlab.”(TOS #1.4) Go figure. There is even more bad news for you there
.
So it’s rather likely they will pay you the amazing amount of round about uhm … *zero* US$ and there will be nothing you can do about, besides crying.
Darien Caldwell
Mar 10th, 2010
What, no mention of Glenn Linden’s departure as well? I guess he wan’t as fameous.
P.S. the new blog seems a bit sterile. Less white-space please!
Judge Joker
Mar 10th, 2010
@Darien Caldwell Don’t worry you’ll get used to It, like a prostate exam!
Dr Ludlow with his lovely assistant nurse Pixeleen and if you can’t Walker straight after that, take a seat and enjoy the chat.
Marx Dudek
Mar 10th, 2010
Anytime Prokofy says that her writing is not a “personal vendetta” … prepare to spend thirty minutes reading paragraph after paragraph of personal vendetta.
IntLibber Brautigan
Mar 10th, 2010
Ah, one more enemy of Woodbury makes his exit. That said, Pathfinder was a classy guy, didn’t really get down and dirty with resi-drama. I’ll buy the Prok-buddy only so far as he was one of those who thought that anything prok had to say was cause for concern by the lab, evidently the source of his opposition to WU returning to the grid. Now that she’s told him not to let the door hit him in the ass, he can clearly see, hopefully, what thats worth.
Best of luck, Jon…
Jumpman Lane
Mar 11th, 2010
what does that even mean, his position doesnt exist anymore, evangelist and marketer, was he just puttering and M and the boys sat up one day and were like ‘wtf WE are paying him to do THAT?!?!”
Ken Glume
Mar 12th, 2010
Hey Pathfinder, come over to DW so we can serve you a cup of JOE, and that goes to the rest of you as well.
Baloo Uriza
Mar 12th, 2010
In all likelihood, it was the Prokofy-Pathfinder connection that doomed Pathfinder’s career at Linden Research.
Lap Liberty
Mar 13th, 2010
It would appear that this passing of Pathfinder Linden is no differant then Cory or Philip or anybody else passing on from Second Life to other horizons. The only differance is do we go with a loving good bye or do we leave with a roaring get the F__k out.
As will all persona’s that leave, we ask, were we glad they left, or sad they didn’t leave sooner?
LOL
Mar 15th, 2010
LL has had to let go alot of it’s staff over the past 2 months. I know most of them were laid off for Tax reasons….. as in LL can not afford the taxes in some states where thier lackies work from home.