Linden Labs CEO resigns
Second Life founder Philip Rosedale returns after 30 per cent cut in head count
Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has stepped down from his role at the Second Life developer, following a round of cost-cutting redundancies.
Kindon took the role in 2008, after current chairman and founder Philip Rosedale stepped down in favour of a replacement with "more operational and management expertise".
Rosedale will now retake the position for an interim period, as chief financial officer Bob Komin also takes on the role of chief operating officer.
No reason for Kingdon's exit was given, but the company was forced to lay off 30 per cent of its 300 worldwide staff earlier in the month.
"On behalf of the board, I thank Mark for all of his contributions during his tenure with Linden Lab which include growing our user base and revenue, increasing the stability of the platform, and nurturing and helping build a world class team," said Rosedale.
Although Second Life has seen considerably less coverage in the mass media in recent years, Linden Labs announced in April that March user-to-user transaction had hit a record high of $57 million.
The number of unique users for the month also rose by 13 per cent to 826,000, with transactions for a whole in 2009 up by 65 per cent to $567 million.