Since 2021, the Second Life community has known Brad Oberwager as the Executive Chair of Linden Lab, a role he took on with the acquisition of Second Life by an investment group co-led by Oberwager. Or perhaps they better know him by his occasional in-world appearance as his avatar, Oberwolf Linden.
But Oberwager (pronounced "oh-ber-wah-ger") tells me his connection to Second Life goes back farther than that, built during road trips to the Black Rock desert, to the place which also helped birth the virtual world.
"I have known about Second Life for years and years because I am such close friends with Philip Rosedale, the founder," as tells me now. "He and I would drive up to Burning Man together and he would tell me the most wonderful stories." (The annual Nevada arts festival, as Making of Second Life readers know, helped inspire Rosedale to create Second Life as much as Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, if not more so.)
With recent reports that Linden Lab has made significant job cuts to staff, however, the Second Life community has been roiled by rumors about the fate of their world. Their consternation was so keen, in fact, Oberwager reached out to me for an impromptu Zoom call last Friday to address those concerns – and to allay fears that they suggest anything dire about the fate of Second Life.
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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