Brendan Iribe

Brendan Trexler Iribe (born August 12, 1979) is an American game programmer, entrepreneur and the original CEO and co-founder of Oculus VR, Inc. and Scaleform.

Brendan Iribe
Born (1979-08-12) August 12, 1979
Maryland, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Maryland, College Park (dropped out)
OccupationVP at Oculus division of Facebook (former)
Known forCo-founder and CEO of Oculus VR, Inc.
Websitebrendaniribe.com

Early life and education

Iribe was born and grew up in Maryland. He graduated from Atholton High School in Howard County, Maryland and then attended the University of Maryland, College Park,[1] majoring in Computer Science which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences in College Park for two semesters before dropping out to work as a freelance programmer.[2][3][4]

Career

He started his career as a game programmer and worked on the user interface of Civilization IV.[1] He was cofounder/CEO of Scaleform, a user interface technology provider for PC games.[1][5] After Scaleform was sold to Autodesk he worked as product team lead at Gaikai.[6] In 2012, he got together with Palmer Luckey to start a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift VR Headset bringing in about $2.4 million.[7] Iribe took the position of CEO at the newly founded Oculus VR. In December 2016, he stepped down from the role of CEO and decided to lead its newly created PC VR group.[8] As of October 2018, Brendan announced in a Facebook post he would be departing Oculus and its parent company Facebook, with no mentioned future plans.[9] In December 2018, he invested in Sketchfab, an online platform for 3D and VR content.[10]

Philanthropy

In 2014 Iribe announced a record-breaking $31 million dollar donation to his alma mater, University of Maryland, College Park.[11] $30 million was for the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a new building which includes labs for virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, and artificial intelligence.[12] The remaining $1 million was donated to establish a scholarship fund. Iribe's mother, Elizabeth Iribe, also gave $3 million to set up two endowed chairs in the school’s computer science department - the Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair and the Paul Chrisman Iribe Chair (named after her brother).[13]

References
  1. Anderson, Nick (2014-09-11). "College dropout donates $31 million to University of Maryland after technology company sells for $2 billion". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  2. Constine, Josh (September 11, 2014). "Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Donates $31M To Build VR Lab At His Alma Mater University Of Maryland". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  3. Bowie, Liz (September 11, 2014). "Howard County native gives $31 million to UM for computer science center". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  4. Kessler, Sarah (2014-09-22). "Why Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Just Gave $31 Million To A New Computer Science Center". Fast Company. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  5. Beilison, Jerry (2014-05-28). "Palmer Luckey and the Virtual Reality Resurrection". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  6. Michaels, Andrew (November 28, 2017). "Students at Howard County's Application and Research Lab test new virtual reality gear". Howard County Times. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  7. Chafkin, Max (October 2015). "Why Facebook's $2 Billion Bet on Oculus Rift Might One Day Connect Everyone on Earth". The Hive. Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  8. Cohen, David (December 13, 2016). "Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe Steps Down; Will Lead PC VR Group". AdWeek. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  9. "So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July 2012". Facebook. October 22, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  10. denoyel, alban (2018-12-17). "Happy to share @brendaniribe (co-founder and former CEO of @oculus) recently joined the @Sketchfab journey as an investor. Great to have you on board, Brendan!". @albn. Retrieved 2019-01-14.
  11. "College Receives $38M for New Computer Science Building, Scholarships, Endowed Professorships". College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. 12 September 2014. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  12. "Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Donates $31M To Build VR Lab At His Alma Mater University Of Maryland". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  13. "UMD Receives $2.1M from the State of Maryland to Create Two Endowed Chairs". College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. 10 September 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
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