Episode 35: Oculus

Ben & David transcend the barriers of “real” reality, and
dive into Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s geek-eutpoia vision of
the future of gaming, social, and maybe even the entire internet:
strapping goofy-looking goggles to your face. Is VR for real this
time or are we living through another Virtual Boy moment? Tune in
to find out! 


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Topics covered include: 

Oculus’s origins in 2010 as a twinkle in the eye of the
then-17 year old VR wunderkind, Palmer Luckey, who started by
prototyping VR headsets in his parents’ garage in Southern
California 

Palmer’s time interning at  USC's Institute for Creative
Technologies, and chronicling of his own VR efforts in the Meant
to be Seen 3D internet forums

Legendary game developer John Carmack’s own interest in
virtual reality, his intersection with Palmer on the MTBS3D
forums, and how he acquired and popularized one of Palmer's first
early prototypes of the Oculus Rift (which was  literally
held together with duct tape!) by demonstrating it onstage at E3
2012 

How former Scaleform cofounders Brendan Iribe and Michael
Antonov teamed up with Palmer after E3 to create the company
Oculus VR

The newly-formed Oculus’s wildly successful August 2012
Kickstarter campaign, including video endorsements from both
Carmack and Valve founder Gabe Newell

Oculus’s subsequent venture capital fundraisings, and
catching the attention of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg 

Facebook’s acquisition of the company in March 2014 for $2.3B

The Zenimax lawsuit filed against Oculus and Facebook
following the acquisition 

Valve (home of the most incredible company handbook of
all-time) and Gabe Newell’s subsequent pivot from supporting
Oculus to launching their own competing VR efforts with the
Vive 

Team changes at Oculus post-acquisition 



  Followups: 


SNAP:  still a public company



  Hot Takes: 


Intel’s $15B acquisition of Mobileye (with reference to
 Ben Thompson’s analysis of the deal and Smiling Curves)



  The Carve Out: 


Ben:  Kara Swisher interviews the Pod Save America team
at SXSW

David: Adam Gopnik asks Are Liberals on the Wrong Side of
History?