Cory Ondrejka

Linden Lab

Living the Dream
43 minutes, 19.9mb, recorded 2004-11-06
"Living the Dream: Business, Community and Innovation at the Dawn of Digital Worlds" presented by Cory Ondrejka, VP of Product Development, Linden Lab, creators of Second Life.

Digital worlds are established destinations for fun and adventure. Like all frontiers, entrepreneurs are in these worlds, generating real-world profits. Digital worlds face important decisions around whether, and how, to embrace these business activities.

As their populations grow, digital worlds are drawing from all walks of life. People from around the globe are discovering worlds where the only limit is human creativity. People, ideas and cultures are interacting in ways never before possible.

Sustained economic growth relies on innovation. Historically, innovation has been a function of transportation and communication costs, property rights, belief structures, and capital markets. Digital worlds optimize these factors in ways the real world cannot, allowing significantly higher per capita growth than any terrestrial nation.

Over the next decade, visionary entrepreneurs will emerge from the digital melting pot of distributed and connected populations. Innovation and growth will allow digital worlds to capture an increasing share of the global economy. They will soon be in direct economic competition with real-world nations.

Cory Ondrejka joined Linden Lab in November of 2000 and brought an extensive background in software development and project management. Most recently, Ondrejka served as project leader and lead programmer for Pacific Coast Power and Light's Nintendo 64 title, Road Rash. Previous experience includes a position as lead programmer for Acclaim Entertainment's first internal coin-op title. Prior to Acclaim, Ondrejka worked on Department of Defense electronic warfare software projects for Lockheed Sanders.

While an officer in the United States Navy, he worked at the National Security Agency and graduated from the Navy Nuclear Power School. Ondrejka is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he was a Presidential "Thousand Points of Light" recipient and became the first person ever to earn Bachelors of Science degrees in two technical majors: Weapons and Systems Engineering and Computer Science.

This presentation was recorded at Accelerating Change 2004, November 5-7, 2004. Check here for the complete Accelerating Change archives.


This free podcast is from our Accelerating Change series.