A ( Damage Control ) Message from M Linden

Greetings, ( ‘insert your name here” )

Yesterday was a challenging but historic and important day for Linden Lab. (Major fuck ups usually are!) We undertook a strategic restructuring to strengthen our business and enable us to move faster and with more focus on the things that matter. ( That would preclude you actually had a clue what matters ) While it will have important ramifications down the line for Second Life ( we normal people call them “consequences” ), rest assured that there are no fundamental changes planned to our experience or platform ( the unplanned ones however, will naturally be extreme and sudden, much like this one, but we will feign ignorance and heartbreak over them too… just not responsibility ), and that both the company and the inworld economy remain in a very strong position. ( It’s easy to stay ‘strong’ when you fire all your experienced employees and cut your services as your future looks bleaker and bleaker. It’s like pushing your co-pilot out of the balloon to ‘remain strong’ and gain a few extra feet in the hopes of clearing the approaching power lines. Which is even more impressive when you consider they were the ones who have been scrambling to save your ass even though you’ve been the one pulling the cord for dumping the hot air even since you got there. Oh M, you’re my hero. )

Our decision to restructure the company was based on our feeling ( a feeling? You base major decisions on your feelings now eh? ) that we were moving too slowly on important strategic initiatives ( HA! Speed was never your problem. It was that your initiatives sucked. You keep doing stupid shit like farming your UI design out to a company that had no experience as an actual user. Your solution? … fire all the remaining staff that are actual users! ), so we have decided to consolidate software development in the US and combine our product and technology organizations into one ( Okay, yeah. I guess you can run a company into the ground faster that way if they are consolidated into one quivering mass of people scared shitless wondering when they will be next. They just saw 30% of their friends and colleagues unceremoniously axed. I’m sure they will be inspired by that and work that much harder… on their resumes ) . We have also streamlined customer support so that it can scale economically as we add users. ( WTF? How do you scale support as you ADD users by CUTTING staff? Ohhhh… scale ECONOMICALLY… meaning you fire well paid people who know what they are doing and instead contract a company that will hire 3 or 4 people for the same price who can’t find their ass with both hands but can read a script. Uhhuh. Okay. Yeah. ) These decisions resulted in significant job eliminations ( Oh course it did. That was the point! You wanted to screw 30% of your employees to make yourself “stronger” and “streamlined”!!! ) and this tends to be what press and bloggers focus on because of the human dimension ( When are you going to learn? SL is all ABOUT the human dimension. It’s about connecting the human dimension through technology in ways they haven’t before. When you make it all about profitability and growing your user base to the point to forget that then you kill the very thing that would have grown your user base and increased your profitability). It is indeed difficult for us to see our colleagues leaving. ( But obviously not difficult enough to choose not blindside them and throw them under the bus anyway, right? )

I am writing to you directly ( in a bulk mass email to everyone… Ooooo so personal) because I want you to know that Second Life – and Linden Lab itself – is in very good shape. ( BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!! “No, no… I can walk…” said the man who cut off his legs to spite his ass ) As a company, Linden Lab remains financially very stable. ( although morally bankrupt ) Our balance sheet is strong and we are well-capitalized ( which is all that matters, right? ) . We will close this year with record revenue ( because we eliminated so many well paying jobs ) and hopefully record users ( don’t bet on it ), and – with your help – record user-to-user transactions and record landmass ( does selling off all my L$ and cashing out count as a user-to-user transaction? ). In May, we recorded more than 1 million logged-in Residents, 37 million user hours, US$52.8 million in user-to-user transactions and 31,800 enabled regions. Second Life is sound. ( Yes, and deep sea oil exploration is completely 100% environmentally safe. )

As a platform for the world’s most robust virtual economy ( for now, until something better comes along ), Second Life remains as vibrant and healthy as ever ( gigglesnort ). By bringing new people to Second Life ( while we hemorrhage the old ones who actually build everything that attracts and keeps them here ), and by increasing the ways in which people can interact with the world ( with an iPad app that will probably be as wonderfully unpopular as V2.0? HAHAHA!!!) and with the people, places, and things within it, we are paving the way for more growth ( Gee, I don’t know how much more of this ‘growth’ we can take ). We remain committed to supporting and improving the SL Marketplace, to pushing forward on IP protection ( How? Let me guess. You going to fire everyone responding to DMCA notices and farm that out to minimum wage know-nothing lackeys too. ), and to growing the number of Residents that participate in the inworld economy.

It is during times like this that partnerships are tested ( and ethical failings exposed ) and I – as CEO – want you to know that we value our partnership with you ( Did you use that same line on your employees before you canned them? I’ll bet a L$ you did. ) and that Second Life and Linden Lab are solid. This kind of transition is difficult for any company, but it need not be difficult for our customers ( How the fuck would you know? You killed off the Lindens that actually KNEW what it was like to BE a customer because they were the ones we knew who ACTUALLY USED YOUR PRODUCT ). Our restructuring leaves Linden Lab in a stronger position ( Kinda like how if you leave Poppy and Grandma out in the woods to fend for themselves the rest of the family is in a ‘stronger position’); Second Life remains the creative and inspiring platform it always has been. ( I don’t expect that to last long now that Linden Lab has proved it is no longer the creative and inspiring company it once had been. )

Best regards,

M Linden ( Are you done with your damage control PR letter now? I’m almost finished downloading Blue Mars.)

This entry was posted on June 13, 2010 at June 13, 2010 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.