Rosedale to Step Down as Linden Lab CEO

Chicago (IL) - Philip Rosedale, creator and founder of Second Life, today announced that his company is searching for someone to replace him as chief executive officer of the company. The new CEO will have the task to grow the company and scale it to "thousands of people and tens of millions of users of Second Life."

Rosedale himself wants to provide "vision, strategy and design" to help building the Second Life virtual world and the company. In this role, he will become chairman of the board and remain "100% involved and fulltime at Linden Lab."

"Second Life is my life’s work, and I am not going anywhere," Rosedale wrote in his blog on Friday. I will focus on product strategy and vision, continuing to design the right kind of company, and being an effective communicator and evangelist about Second Life. As a community member, you will probably see more of me in-world."

He did not mention who will become CEO of Linden Lab, but said that he believes "that [Linden Lab] can hire a fantastic person in that role, and also give [Rosedale] the ability to totally focus myself on the job that I do well. I bet this will be the most interesting job opening in the technology world."

Secodn Life went online in 2003.