The Real Reason Palmer Luckey Was Fired From Facebook (zdnet.com)

ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols argues that the founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, wasn't fired because of his political views, as a recently-published Wall Street Journal article suggests, but because the virtual-reality company lost a $500 million intellectual property theft case to game maker ZeniMax. An anonymous reader shares the report: According to The Wall Street Journal, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, a virtual reality company, was fired by Facebook because "he donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group" during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign. But the article fails to mention a simple little fact: On Feb. 1, 2017, Oculus lost an intellectual property (IP) theft case against game maker ZeniMax, to the tune of $500 million. So, if one of your employees just cost your company a cool half-billion bucks for doing wrong what would you do? Well, Facebook isn't saying, even now, but on March 30, 2017, it let Luckey go.

Yes, Luckey also lied about his political moves, which went well beyond donating to an anti-Hillary billboard campaign. But let's look at the record. Everyone knew he'd lied by Feb. 22, 2016. Was he fired then? No. Was he fired after being found guilty of stealing ZeniMax's trade secrets? Yes. Officially, Facebook stated: "All details associated with specific personnel matters are kept strictly confidential. This is our policy for all employees, no matter their seniority. But we can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views." Let me spell it out for you: He made some political waves. Nothing happened. He cost Facebook $500 million. He was fired. Can anyone here seriously not draw the lines between the dots?

Comments

TRASH Article

[bongey]

John Carmack still works for Facebook, who was a party in the ZeniMax case. Palmer Luckey wasn't even a party in the case. Utter bullshit story trying to deflect.

Re:TRASH Article

[Anonymous Coward]

You're apparently a moron. Palmer was the CEO of the company when it infringed, FB then bought that company and inherited that fight. Yes, he was a party.

Re:TRASH Article

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, as any freshman business major can tell you, sunk costs should be ignored. You don't fire people because they lost money in the past, you fire them because you think they are going to lose money in the future.

My experience is that the most common reason people are fired is incompetence. The 2nd most common is being on the losing end of internal office politics. As you move up the hierarchy from janitor to CEO the first reason diminishes and the 2nd increases.

Re: TRASH Article

[Narcocide]

The cognitive dissonance enters the situation here: Nobody wants to believe that the company Carmack worked for knowingly skuttled the modern VR gaming movement by selling to Facebook, who they knew ahead of time would just gobble up all the patents and then one way or another bury them forever.

Re:TRASH Article

[Anonymous Coward]

NO!! ORANGE MAN BAD!!!!!

Re:TRASH Article

[PopeRatzo]

My experience is that the most common reason people are fired is incompetence.

Costing the company half a billion dollars might be seen as incompetence in some circles.

Re:TRASH Article

[PhrostyMcByte]

John Carmack still works for Facebook, who was a party in the ZeniMax case.

This argument also doesn't work, because Carmack has very obvious ongoing value while Luckey had already made his major contribution.

Re:TRASH Article

[squiggleslash]

Carmack is an important software developer who knows how the system works. Luckey isn't. He's an entrepreneur, not an engineer.

Additionally Facebook has pro-Trump people on its board, including Peter Thiel, who gave far more to the Trump campaign than Luckey, so the argument that Facebook fired anyone for supporting Trump is plain ludicrous on the face of it.

Re:TRASH Article

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't fire people because they lost money in the past, you fire them because you think they are going to lose money in the future.

"Oculus is liable for $300 million in the verdict ($50 million for trademark infringement, $50 million for copyright infringement, and $200 million for breaking the NDA), while Luckey owes $50 million and former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe owes $150 million (both for false designation). Oculus CTO John Carmack, who previously worked for ZeniMax and was accused of stealing code and destroying evidence, is not personally liable for any damages. ZeniMax had sought damages of $6 billion in the case." --Oculus Exec Liable for 500 million in ZeniMax VR Trial. I don't think I'd be inclined to trust a person to not lose more money after that. Carmack, meanwhile, has a long history of being a huge driver in making a company money and was not found personally liable. Seriously, though, how often do you hear of Execs of any large-ish companies being held *personally* liable?

My experience is that the most common reason people are fired is incompetence. The 2nd most common is being on the losing end of internal office politics. As you move up the hierarchy from janitor to CEO the first reason diminishes and the 2nd increases.

Presumably the trial exposed how incompetent this Luckey was in actual VR stuff (or at least management of it). Besides, they purchased Oculus for Carmack, not Luckey. Internal office politics I'd tend to argue probably fell more on getting rid of "dead weight" from a purchase made, not external political affiliation. Anything and everything was probably much more of a useful excuse than "we fire all the executives because we already have our own management", as that's the sort of thing to cause executives of companies to be very hesitant of being bought up by Facebook. Having to pay some trivial duty to whatever political party, charity, whatever to keep your high level Facebook executive job and cut off that excuse? Yea, that I imagine happening more in the future as ass covering, not as actual need or effectiveness.

Re:TRASH Article

[Wescotte]

According to the court case decision Carmack wasn't head liable for any wrongdoing.

The jury trial completed on February 2, 2017, with the jury finding that Luckey had violated the NDA he had with ZeniMax, and awarding $500 million to ZeniMax.[15][16] However, the jury found that Oculus, Facebook, Luckey, Iribe, and Carmack did not misappropriate or steal trade secrets,[15][16][17] though ZeniMax continued to publicly assert otherwise

Re:TRASH Article

[HarrySquatter]

Yeah and contrary to Palmer Luckey, Carmack didn't cost Facebook $500 million in patent infringment costs.

Re:TRASH Article

[serviscope_minor]

Also, as any freshman business major can tell you, sunk costs should be ignored. You don't fire people because they lost money in the past, you fire them because you think they are going to lose money in the future.

As anyone who's older than freshmen will tell you that never happens in practice. Businesses do not operate in some sort of platonic drive for profit free from emotion. They're made of people and people get really pissed off if you loose a cool half billion.

Re: TRASH Article

[e3m4n]

Its hard to say if $500M is a lot of money or not to the likes of FB. Their net worth fluxuates a lot more than that on a daily basis. It sure sounds like a lot of money to me, but ive never had anything even close to a million dollars. My gut says it wasnt about the money. Perhaps the lawsuit, but not the $500M itself.

Here is a guy that caused a rift because he was an outlier for his political position. Then the lawsuit concluded and was found guilty of infringing. My first question as a FB exec is,
  - Did we actually buy anything? Or did we find ourself paying top dollar for whst we thought was talent; only to turn out to be a poser that stole the tech and slapped their name on it? -

That would be my first question. Afterall they did pay $3 billion for Oculus. What so they have to show for $3.5B? ($3B plus the $500M lawsuit) If there is no actual *talent* here, why bother keeping him on? Especially one who does make waves among the staff. So his political actions most likely was a few nails, but not the coffin itself.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/a...

Re:TRASH Article

[L. J. Beauregard]

This is not "Score:2, Insightful." This is "Score:-1, Troll."

Re:TRASH Article

[rahvin112]

Court verdicts aren't final until all the appeals are exhausted, people should remember that. Facebook would be foolish to pay ZeniMax the $500million without exhausting their appeals.

Typically a large verdict like this is virtually wiped out in appeal. The $2Billion Apple/Samsung verdict ended up around $100 million.

"Let me spell it out for you"

[iMadeGhostzilla]

The author of the article seems very intent on the readers taking his speculation as truth. I wonder why he cares so much.

Palmer Luckey is a proven thief.

[BigBlockMopar]

On Feb. 1, 2017, Oculus lost an intellectual property (IP) theft case against game maker ZeniMax, to the tune of $500 million.

So a civil court (not a criminal court) found him guilty of theft.

How can your boss, your company (the group of people you work with), or your Company (Facebook Inc) ever trust you not to steal from them?

He's lucky not to be leaving in handcuffs.

Re:Palmer Luckey is a proven thief.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The civil court found him liable for hiring John Carmack, who in turn brought IP with him. Which is probably true, as ZeniMax paid a bundle to buy id software a few years prior and as John Carmack's inventions no doubt were hugely valuable.

Doubtful

[110010001000]

Execs lose billions of dollars and there are no repercussions. For example: Microsoft bought github for $7.5 billion. Eventually that will be marked down as a "writedown" for $7 billion, because Github isn't worth nearly what Microsoft paid for it. Essentially the executives wasted $7.5 billion. So, losing a $500 million court case is nothing. GE just did a writedown of $23 billion. There are no ramifications for the executives, but the stockholders get the shaft.

Re:Doubtful

[fatwilbur]

While I agree with your point, your first example of MS and github is wrong. You provided a textbook example of what is defined as goodwill in accounting. It's not an seldom used concept either; nearly every time you buy an entire company, unless it's performing very poorly, it's universally expected you're going to have to pay more than it is actually worth (based on sum of assets, income, etc.). While this may look like a "write down" in the sense it is a non-cash loss, the goodwill remains as an asset on the balance sheet. This is very different than "wasting" money (at least from an accounting sense) or a write-down where you're acknowledging the company has less valuable assets.

Re:Doubtful

[Whibla]

Can the "goodwill" be sold to a new buyer without the other assets?... as an investor I always discount goodwill to zero whenever I'm examining a balance sheet.

Yes, it can be 'sold': Think franchises, brand and name licensing deals, and so on, that encourage future sales, by a different company, based on past perception of the original company. The increase in revenue (between two identical products, only one of which has widespread name recognition) is derived, literally, from the goodwill of the customers.

It is probably fair to say that much goodwill is overvalued on corporate balance sheets, but it, again probably, shouldn't be discounted entirely. The value calculation is very much going to depend on the corporation in question and, specifically, it's current management team and processes, and it's plans for the future. Determining this is generally thought of as part of due diligence, but clearly in your case you 'simplify' the process by zeroing this part out. In a sense this is the 'safe' option but you should be aware that in doing so, while you're limiting your risk, you are (in some cases grossly) undervaluing the companies you examine hence basically missing out on profitable investment opportunities.

Re:Doubtful

[110010001000]

Goodwill is also wasting money. If you have a lot of goodwill on your books you are shafting your investors. And no, normally companies don't buy companies at more than they are worth. That is dumb. This is a new phenomenon caused by too much cheap capital. And you can see why this is dumb: look at GE. They are likely to go bankrupt due to their buying habits.

Re:Doubtful

[110010001000]

It should bother you. It is just an accounting trick. The reality is that it is a loss. People who buy into the concept of "goodwill" are idiots.

Re:Doubtful

[110010001000]

That was criminal fraud. They didn't go to jail for losing money.

Re:Doubtful

[110010001000]

Github will never generate $7.5 billion in cashflow for Microsoft. Ever.

No Shit

[mentil]

Anyone paying a modicum of attention to the case figured that out long ago. That said, on appeal the judgement against Luckey/Iribe was eliminated, leaving a $250M judgement against Oculus.

I hope he was fired over his political views

[ASCIIxTended]

I hope he was fired over his political views and then proceeds to sue the crap out of FB because of it.

Re:I hope he was fired over his political views

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Cnet the WSJ reported "Amid corporate displeasure with Luckey's donation, he was pressured by executives to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, according to the Journal. Luckey later hired an employment lawyer who argued that Facebook illegally punished an employee for political activity and negotiated a payout for Luckey of at least $100 million, the newspaper reported."

Re:I hope he was fired over his political views

[HarrySquatter]

Wouldn't he have already sued by now? The shitstain was fired more than a ywar and a half ago.

Re:Uh huh. Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on. This is why the internet is fragmenting. People dumping left wing sites like Google and Facebook for sites like Gab.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[Raenex]

The kind of folks who run Facebook couldn't care less which side won.

Oh really?

"Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta in June 2015 that she wants Clinton to "win badly" and that she is there to "help" as best she can, a leaked email reveals.

"Thank you -- means a lot to me that you reached out. And I like that you are praying for Dave. I have to believe in heaven now. And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids," Sandberg sent to Podesta in response to an email of his wishing condolences following the death of her husband.

In another email contained in the WikiLeaks release, this one from August, Sandberg asks Podesta if he'd be willing to meet with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

She wrote that Zuckerberg "is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about. He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals on social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research)."

Sandberg has donated tens of thousands to Democrats. In 2016 alone, the Facebook executive donated $270,800 alone to Democratic candidates and party committee, that includes $2,700 to Clinton."

So now Zenimax posts articles on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Zenimax is run by an actual banking/investment crook. As bad as EA and Actision are, they look like saints compared to Zenimax.

Now as I type, Zenimax has warehouses of paid trolls- PR reputation services in media speak- boost their godawful loot box riddled POS Fallout 76. Zenimax is literally spending millions on Youtube influencers to sell the game every Elder Scrolls and Fallout fan never asked for. It is no surprise that the PR firm suggested to Zenimax that they could 'widen' their pro-Zenimax efforts on sites like Slashdot.

Google McSkillet- the murderer the AAA game publishing industry hopes you never heard of. Kids like him were used as a FRONT by Valve to run their child-targeted gambling Services. When Valve's owner got advanced warning that the US gpovernment were about to crack down, he dropped his young 'influencers' like hot potatoes, and some, like McSkillet, cracked.

Valve was trying to perfect 'gaming as a service'. Which means microtransactions designed by psychologists to appeal to kids and weak minded adults.

Zenimax is determined to succeed where Valve failed. All of Bethesda's major 'game' announcements this year were microtransaction riddled trash. Even next year's 'Doom' follows this same model.

As I said, Valve made wide use of child influencers (peers selling to peers) who were the ON PAPER owners of the advanced gambling services Valve had paid to create. Ring a bell? Like when the mob owned gambling in Las Vegas, but used 'little old ladies' as the apparent owners of the casinos? Like in the Scorsese, De Niro film based on real life.

Zenimax, run by tribe members with a LOT of experience of bent investments and Hollywood shenenigans, intend to be 'smarter' than Valve.

The truth of Zenimax and Facebook/oculus/Carmack is that after Bethesda bought iD, they discovered Carmack was a total liability (the same reason iD had failed and had to sell itself to Beth). In any game meeting, Carmack had to be present, and he was toxic. So they wanted him OUT of the building, and thus allowed him to go work at the oculus start-up.

This worked, and Beth was finally able to get the iD team producing games. Carmack, not being a lawyer, took 'his' code resources to oculus- a fatal mistake. Carmack was in an open situation- not getting how this would later be used by bent Zenimax lawyers to set him up, and use him as the 'fall guy'.

Oculus stole NOTHING. They simply used the freely supplied services of Carmack without asking questions about any later Zenimax trap. Carmack is not a particularly great coder- his masterpiece was Doom- Quake was really Abrash, and Carmack struggled to do anything industry significant at id after Quake (1). Carmack loathed the idea of id employing coding talent clearly better than he was. So while id inspired much, its ability to produce an industry quality engine became a sad joke. Carmack's obsession with 'megatexture' was the last straw- a wrong headed approach to the concept of better textures in games in every way.

But Carmack ain't a thief or a devious person. Zenimax exploiting his honest naivety and desire for open coding practises was satanic.

Zenimax is a literal cancer. The sacked founder of Oculus was a chancer with nothing really to offer the company. The rift and vive made necessary baby steps to making VR finally NOT-BAD, but far from 'good'.

Sony, with dedicated VR hardware from AMD in its new console next year, will take the lead in acceptable home VR, and the rift and vive will cease to be relevant.

As for the ongoing fight between the satanic Zenimax, and the satanic Facebook (facebook is far more evil)- well the best outcome (which won't happen) would be if both killed the other. The truth is that Facebook is so rich, and so diverted by its real agenda, it couldn't be bothered to fight the midget that is Zenimax. The money Facebook lost is just change down the side of the sofa.

But the foul Zenimax needs to talk up its 'victory', as is common with aggresive height challenged males.

Better you here ask WHY this story is promoted on Slashdot at this time.

Re:So now Zenimax posts articles on Slashdot

[sebrk]

Now that you spent so much time writing this I just want to say it is all garbage. Your loss.

Re:Fake news...

[R3d M3rcury]

Religion, you have a case. Political? Not so much. Republicans are not a protected group.

Re:Luckey landed on his feet however

[edi_guy]

Really...kickass? It looks like drones and video camera towers. Oh, wait no, I forgot they have the magic of AI too!! That makes it better. Would love to know how how much they will try to ding Uncle Sam for this junk. Another company, Elbit, sold 46 such towers for $145 million.

Re:Fake news...

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

What's it like, being a delusional twat?

Re:Uh huh. Sure.

[HarrySquatter]

Carmack isn't a leftist and yet wasn't fired. Oops there go your whole conspiracy.

Re:Fake news...

[bongey]

Luckey did take them to court and facebook payed out another 100 million.

Re: I don't know why he was fired

[Type44Q]

blue collar bullshit, and other white supremacy dog whistles

Folks, I think we found the only white-collar socialist...

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[cyber-vandal]

Are you body-shaming people? How disgusting of you.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[AmiMoJo]

What about Peter Thiel? He's on the Facebook board and gave far more money to Trump than Lucky did.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[AmiMoJo]

Well his presence rather undermines the notion that people get fired for for the political views or that Facebook itself has some kind of corporate level political agenda.

Re:Interesting

[Bobrick]

What damage? Nobody outside of the far-right fringes gave a shit.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[crypticedge]

Daily caller is not a legitimate news source. They're a propaganda outfit designed to fool the uneducated into a life long outrage using fearmongering and making anyone that isn't part of the daily caller/daily stormer/stormfront circle the "others"

Re: Only "hateful" when you idolise a fucking twat

[e3m4n]

I dont think thats a one side problem. Winning at any cost seems to be an epidemic. HRC is clearly evidence of that, otherwise sheâ(TM)d never make it on a ballot. But she can blackmail a lot of groups into obscene amounts of fundraising and donations, so it makes it ok in the end.

Its an product of polarization, which the media DID fan the flames of since the 2000 election. Polarization sells views which brings in ad revenue. Theyre the whores and we are the Johns. This isnt Football. When the game is over WE are the ones thst has to clean the fucking stadium. But you seem content to keep rooting for one side and bashing the other. Take a step back. Both sides are doing the exact same shit.

Re: I don't know why he was fired

[e3m4n]

I didnt think he gave a shit about abortion? Both are definitely obsessed with title and position. His more so on public opinion (ie how many people attended inauguration) and hers is about holding a title of first woman president. Neither case puts country above politics.

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[Hentai007]

Have you ever seen a picture of Luckey without cheetos dust on his fingers? Of course he was desperate to make VR a thing, he's a shut in! If it wasn't for virtual reality he wouldn't have any reality.

Re:Fake news...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

IANAL but many states include political beliefs in their anti-discrimination laws, and I think CA is one.

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[cyber-vandal]

Envy is a terrible thing. He's fabulously wealthy and you ..... you're not. No amount of judging people by their appearance is going to change that.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[Raenex]

Facebook employees and tech companies in general have moved hard left. You can't wipe away the number 2 position at Facebook's email to Hillary's campaign manager just because once upon a time Thiel was brought on in 2005 and they haven't yet fired him. As I said, it's non-trivial to remove a board member.

You can't wipe away internal reports of just how intolerantly left Facebook's culture is -- even Zuckerberg admitted Silicon Valley is an "extremely left-leaning place" in testimony before Congress.

Re:Fake news...

[im_thatoneguy]

Republicans are not a protected group.

Oh the irony of a group who has a core political tenant of protecting a corporation's ability to fire people for no reason and lambasts 'snow flakes' for seeking protected-group status complaining that they deserve to be protected.

You know, not something like your gender, sexual orientation or race... something you're born with. No Republicans believe the only protected class for firing should be your political belief that being trans or a woman shouldn't offer you any protection.

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[cyber-vandal]

The OP is measuring their self-worth by how someone else looks which is even more tragic.

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[Hentai007]

Neckbeards of the world, unite! You guys should form a support group, would have to be over Skype though since you don't leave the house and all.

Re: Shhhh stop making sense!

[cyber-vandal]

I'm neither a neckbeard or a shut-in but going by your username and raging hatred of a rich man who has a girlfriend it sounds like you need to leave your basement occasionally.