Palmer Luckey, the founder of VR pioneer Oculus, has been out of hiding for over a year now, and is finally speaking up about his time with Facebook. He didn’t say much, aside from pointing out two brief lessons that he had learned; “Be careful who you trust.”, and “Be careful who’s in control.” Presumably, these subtle admonishments pointed at Facebook and Oculus’ higher-ups mean that Luckey was none too happy about leaving behind the company that he helped build up. It is worth noting that no reports have yet surfaced to contradict the notion that Luckey left voluntarily and was not terminated or asked to resign.
After Oculus was bought up by Facebook in 2014, all was seemingly well for a while. In 2016, however, Luckey came under fire for his right-wing political views and monetary contributions, and subsequently issued a public apology and went dark. When he emerged in January of 2017, it was to fight off a lawsuit that dated back to the company’s founding. The suit alleged that gaming icon John Carmack poached technology and software that he had created and worked with while employed by id Software, the company behind such titles as Doom and Quake, to help get the then-fledgling VR system off the ground. id Software’s parent company, ZeniMax Media, brought the suit, and ended up winning $500,000 from Facebook. Luckey was at the center of the trial. Facebook had also fallen under frequent criticism for alleged left-leaning political bias that could be seen in day to day operations such as the controversial Trending feature. While these allegations never seemed to gain any real ground in a legal or official sense, the rumors would certainly put Luckey’s right-wing views in firm opposition of the wider company culture of Facebook.
Going forward, Luckey is combining his political leanings and technical expertise into a startup called Anduril. In the works since 2017, the objective is to create a virtual border wall of sorts for the US by using VR-friendly sensors and other technology to monitor the US border in great detail. The venture is backed by tech celebrity Peter Thiel, a noted supporter of President Donald Trump and related parties. According to immigration authorities, Luckey’s technology has helped to identify and find 55 illegal immigrants into the US in the last 10 months.