I just had a chance to read James Au's new book, "The Making of Second Life." It was a fun read, but like any collection of memories, it captures only a tiny slice of the events that went into making Second Life. So, I think it would be fun to make a semi-regular part of this site (Collapsing Geography) different moments from my memories of the first 7 years of Second Life.
There have been various reports of where the name Linden World came from. Sadly, that name was my fault. When I gave my signed offer letter to Philip, we met down at Accel's office in Palo Alto. One of the best parts of the early Linden offer letters is that Philip wrote them in a relatively informal style that perfectly captured his excitement about Linden. If I recall correctly, it had a wonderful phrase about how happy he was to be hiring me and that we were going to change the world. I was excited and worried, since I was walking away from what I knew -- game development -- and trying something quite new, and a bit intimidated by the whole Accel VC vibe. Philip set me at ease and introduced me to several of the Accel partners, including Jim Breyer. I handed him the paperwork that would put me on a new path and he shook my hand, saying how much fun we were going to have building this new world. I responded with "Yes, building Linden World is going to a blast." I paused. "But, let's never call it that!" Unfortunately, the name stuck in early discussions with Andrew and Frank -- and was cemented thanks to Frank's "Welcome to Linden World!" audio sample -- despite all of us agreeing that it was a horrible name. It wasn't until after Demo, the hiring of Hunter and Robin, and the move to 2nd Street that we were able to really revisit the name.
Source: Collapsing Geography
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