Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Joins Us To Talk VR In The Facebook Era At Disrupt NY

Disrupt NY 2014 kicks off in less than a week, and we’re thrilled to announce that Brendan Iribe, Oculus VR founder and CEO, will join us for a fireside chat to talk about Oculus’ future now that the company has been acquired by Facebook. Brendan is scheduled to talk on Monday, May 5th at 2pm.

Oculus VR is a virtual reality company composed of several successful gaming industry veterans aiming to disrupt the traditional gaming experience. The company launched in August 2012 as a Kickstarter campaign with a modest $250,000 goal. They raised nearly 10x that amount, bringing in over $2.4 million from nearly 10,000 backers. The product, the Oculus Rift gaming headset, is currently being tested by the majority of those backers, as well as several folks who bought the development kit since it was launched last year.

Of course, Oculus has a new partner that’ll help shape the future of the product. Facebook bought Oculus in March 2014 for a staggering $2 billion in cash and stock. As with any well-liked company purchased by Facebook, there was significant outcry when the deal was announced, especially from developers who aren’t interested in dealing with Facebook.

The concerns have quelled a bit in the weeks as both Facebook and Oculus have reaffirmed their commitment to building a top-end virtual reality experience, and not just a Facebook-branded one. Still, Facebook shelled out a significant amount of money for what is currently a niche product — so it’s safe to assume that Facebook has more than just hardcore gamers on their mind with the Oculus VR technology.

Prior to founding Oculus VR, Brendan was a video game industry success story and a developer who worked on the UI for the massively popular Civilization IV game. He also served as the Chief Product Officer of Gaikai, the upcoming service that lets you stream older-gen games to the PlayStation 4 gaming console. Brendan also spent a decade as the co-founder and CEO of Scaleform, the leading interface technology provider in the video game market that was acquired by Autodesk in 2011.

We’re excited to hear what Brendan has to share with us at Disrupt NY 2014. If you’d like to get in on the action, tickets are still available through the start of the event on May 5th. Order your ticket now by heading over to this page.