Facebook exodus continues as Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves
- Brendan Iribe, the former CEO and co-founder of Oculus, announced on Monday that he is leaving Facebook.
- Iribe's departure comes a month after the exits of Instagram Co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
- Earlier this year, WhatsApp Co-founder Jan Koum also left the company.
Brendan Iribe, the former CEO and co-founder of Oculus, announced on Monday that he would be leaving Facebook, making him the latest founder of a notable start-up acquired by the company to depart.
"I'd like to sincerely thank everyone that's been a part of this amazing journey, especially Mark [Zuckerberg] for believing in this team and the future of VR and AR," Iribe said in a Facebook post.
Facebook has seen the exits of Instagram Co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in September and WhatsApp Co-founder Jan Koum in April as it has dealt with a series of scandals over the security and privacy of user data as well as the spread of misinformation on the company's services.
Iribe joined Facebook when the company acquired Oculus, a virtual reality company, in 2014 for $2 billion. Since then, Oculus has failed to gain mainstream adoption, but Facebook has continued to develop new versions of the company's hardware, most recently announcing the $399 Oculus Quest. Iribe was CEO of Oculus until he was demoted from the role in late 2016.
Iribe is not the only notable Oculus co-founder to have left the company. Fellow co-founder Palmer Luckey left Facebook in 2016 amid controversy surrounding his political contributions and financial support of far-right groups and internet trolls.
"Selling Oculus to Facebook was the best thing that ever happened to the VR industry even if it wasn't super great for me," Luckey said earlier this month.
Tensions between Zuckerberg and his acquired start-up co-founders have reportedly been growing over the past year as the company deals with scandal after scandal. Speaking last week, Instagram's Systrom said "no one ever leaves a job because everything's awesome."
Shares of Facebook stock were up slightly on Monday.