We're also in a world where all the founders of Oculus have quit and no longer have a say in decisions like this. Facebook foundational employees and recent hires are running the show and the end game for Oculus is to give Facebook a platform that they control that is as pervasive as iOS or Android (or at least Xbox or PlayStation).
As a former Oculus and Facebook employee I'm torn by this. I always understood how a none trivial portion of the Oculus user base is extremely anti-Facebook, or even how people with Facebook accounts didn't want their Facebook account tied to Oculus. At the same time it would seriously reduce technical friction around using Facebook backend features in Oculus products. I know some folks would see this as a complete negative and I understand where you are coming from, but there are some interesting positive use cases as well.
Which is why smart founders can still get away with making these statements during the acquisitions so they can continue to grow their company post close (which means their post close bonus also stays in tact) and then leave after their golden handcuffs are done (usually 2-5 years).
> For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen post deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.
For me, its on the other side of the coin. If I'm a founder and someone gives me billions of dollars for both acquiring my company and an additional bonus to pump the company I'm 100% incentivized to do everything possible to ensure that...even making forward statements that I don't genuinely believe are going to happen.
For everyone else - don't trust anyting an acquirer says - follow what they do.
(I think he really did believe at the time that Facebook wouldn't Facebook it up.)
Bad egg from the start from how they acquired tech and employees, to their exclusive policy on launch and their artificial compatibility issues with other headsets today, getting worse when selling out to Facebook is no surprise.
In the end it is nitpicking; the effect is much the same.
In any case, Luckey was a 20-year old kid who got some lenses to point in the right direction to give a decent FOV. He had a good Kickstarter, hired a CEO, and two years later he sold to Facebook for billions. Should he have made those promises? Probably not. Should any of us have taken his predictions seriously about what Facebook would do in 6 years, which is 50% longer than Luckey's adult life at that point? Also probably not.
Agreed, but that's no different that ANY corporate statement on anything. Things change. A policy or statement may be true this year, but may not be true next year.
GitHub made many nice statements post-Microsoft acquisition, and you know what, Microsoft execs may even believe all of them today. In 5 years though - who knows.
>Of course he and FB had a pretty strong incentive to ensure that there wouldn't be an immediate break-off risk to the acquisition, and of course there was plenty of evidence from other acquisitions that this is how the world works.
That could be part of it. It could also be the case that FB just didn't make any decisions pertaining to this aspect of Oculus at that point in time. It could also be the case that FB had many different factions within its org that pushed for different things - one faction wanted to use FB login, another did not and the former faction won after a while.
This is less nefarious than people are making it out to be.
Look at his exit from FB and his funding of Trump groups in 2016.
His life, in its successes and failures, has often been the result of what appears to be optimistic naivety.
He believed BigCo FB would keep their word to him on FB login not being required. He believed FB wouldn’t essentially fire him for his political opinions as well.
I'd like to believe him, but it is pretty hard to do so given the historic record of acquisitions to date.
For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen post deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.