Oculus Co-Founder Brendan Iribe to Exit Facebook

Oculus co-founder and former chief executive Brendan Iribe announced Monday he’s leaving Facebook, marking the latest high-profile departure from the social network.

Iribe co-founded the virtual reality company in 2012 and guided its $2 billion acquisition by Facebook in 2014. He thanked Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for his support of virtual and augmented reality in a post on his Facebook page.

“Working alongside so many talented people at Oculus and Facebook has been the most transformative experience of my career,” Iribe wrote. “We have a saying when someone compliments or thanks you – ‘Team effort’. The success of Oculus was only possible because of such an extraordinary team effort. I’d like to sincerely thank everyone that’s been a part of this amazing journey, especially Mark for believing in this team and the future of VR and AR.”

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Iribe is the second founder to leave Facebook in less than two years, after Palmer Luckey exited in March 2017. Iribe was the company’s chief executive until 2016, but shifted to focusing on the company’s PC-based Rift VR headset after Zuckerberg appointed Hugo Barra to lead Facebook’s VR push.

He’s also the latest executive to leave Facebook’s orbit in the last year. Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced their exit from Facebook last month.

Facebook policy and communications boss Elliot Schrage left the company in June, months after the company was rocked by the Cambridge Analytica data leak. And WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced his exit from Facebook in April, four years after the popular messaging app was bought for $19 billion.