The CEO of Facebook's virtual reality arm, Oculus, is stepping down

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Brendan Iribe

Michael Seto/Business Insider

Brendan Iribe.

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Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe is stepping down.

Iribe will lead a new division within the Facebook-owned company that's dedicated to building high-end virtual reality for PCs, he said in a blog post on Tuesday. A new mobile VR group will be led by Jon Thomason, who recently joined from Amazon.

A new CEO for Oculus has yet to be named.

Iribe helped created Oculus as a Kickstarter project with Palmer Luckey in 2012 and was brought on as CEO when Facebook acquired the startup for $2 billion in 2014.

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"Looking ahead and thinking about where I'm most passionate, I've decided to lead the PC VR group-pushing the state of VR forward with Rift, research and computer vision," Iribe said. "As we've grown, I really missed the deep, day-to-day involvement in building a brand new product on the leading edge of technology."

Iribe, Thomason, and Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer will together look for a new CEO to lead Oculus.

Iribe's blog post curiously makes no mention of his Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey, who has gone silent and not appeared publicly since he admitted to funding anti-Hillary Clinton internet memes in September.

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