From Wagnar James of Blogspot
Torley, Beloved Second Life & Sansar Community Advocate, Left Linden Lab Last Month, According To His LinkedIn.
Some insiders mentioned this to me in recent weeks and it seemed so incredible, I could not believe it at first. But his LinkedIn page apparently confirms it:
Torley, beloved evangelist and community support staffer for both Second Life and Sansar (among his many other roles over the years), is no longer with Linden Lab as of last month. I've reached out to Torley for more details, and will update this post if I get a reply. So as of now, it's not clear to me whether Torley was part of the Linden Lab layoffs in February as the company walked away from Sansar, or if he left on his own accord, or if there was another reason for his departure.
Kona Gurion, who also left Linden Lab last month (and definitely part of the layoffs), was a member of Linden Lab's QA team for Second Life for 16 years. At the time I described Kona as the company's last link to Second Life's glory days, but that turns out not to be true: Torley was with Linden Lab for 15 years, and is just as crucial a link to lose, if not more so, far as the SL community is concerned.
Like Kona, Torley was recruited from within the Second Life user community during its earliest years, and was among the first people I profiled when I was still an embedded journalist for Linden Lab, first back in 2005 here, writing: "He was a slim young dude in flowing neon clothes who hauled his keyboard around everywhere, and though a relative newcomer, quickly charmed Second Life's citizenry with his quirky, mad creative charm."
With Torley gone from Linden Lab, Second Life (and indeed the company itself) loses a brilliant shard of that heart. My only hope is Torley finds a new role at a new company that recognizes how special he is.
Throwback: "What Second Life Means to Me" Torley Linden
Read the full article here
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