Philip Rosedale

Philip Rosedale

Founder of Second Life.

I make things, usually with software.

Experiments

Interactive Neurons

A spiking neural network simulator where you can drag neurons around, adjust weights, attach input and output keyboard letters, and play around with how this type of neural network learns.

Emergent Coherence

This Shadertoy example is a nearest-neighbor spiking network demonstrating the emergence of a "heartbeat" shortly after starting in a random initial state.

Alignment

Vectors try to align with neighbors, creating complex islands of agreement.

GPU Particles

Particles with flocking and other behaviors, learning GPU coding.

Hierarchical Game of Life

An experimental implementation of Conway's Game of Life with hierarchical structures.

Run Tracker

Run Tracker with no digital exhaust. PWA (add it to your home screen), stores nothing to nowhere, vibe-coded. I've always wanted this and didn't have time to code it. I want to go running, but I don't want to store where I'm running in the f**king cloud.

Jitter

Test for minimal noticeable display jitter for a moving object, with various perceptual metrics.

SolarBed Mutant Vehicle

In 2019 I built a solar-powered art car for Burning Man, and have upgraded it it various ways each year since.

Writings

Awakening the Angels

Mar 2026

"We'll need all your computers, and a little luck"

Channels, not Addresses

Jan 2026

A simple change will make the internet more secure and decentralized.

1/(Effective Altruism)

Dec 2025

Why discounting for distance and time may be the better way to go.

Strong Capitalism

Sep 2025

Playing entrepreneur on Hard Mode.

Finding a Better Perceptual Metric than FPS

Jul 2025

In a highly framerate-heterogeneous 3D environment, jitter seems more important than average FPS.

Hierarchy in Virtual Worlds

Jul 2025

Living things use emergent hierarchies to express complex structures.

Ultraviolet Catastrophe

Jun 2025

AI is about to make the public internet useless.

Beyond Dunbar

Feb 2025

Tech can build trust and enable stronger local communities.

On the Election

Nov 2024

Challenging times lie ahead, due to increasing inequality.

Facial Expressions and Body Language

Jul 2024

Neal Stephenson predicted the problem with VR, way back in "Snow Crash".

Avoiding Homogenization with AI

Jun 2024

Large models remember popular things much better.

Adventures of the Linden Dollar

May 2024

Learning from Second Life's digital currency.

Replacing Uber

Apr 2024

A decentralized version could give drivers 50% more income.

The Price of Distrust

Apr 2024

If we cannot agree with each other, we turn to gold.

Consciousness as a Hall of Mirrors

Apr 2024

I predict myself, therefore I am? Exploring the recursive nature of consciousness.

A Different Approach to VR

Mar 2024

Detecting intention rather than actual motion.

First Thoughts, Apple Vision Pro

Feb 2024

Amazing UX and visual quality but weight and comfort still a blocker.

Facing the Inflationary Info-verse

Jan 2024

We are having to cope with knowing less and less.

Tragedy of the Web Commons

Dec 2023

Google made money, but at the price of adding noise to the Web.

Defining Economic Fairness

Dec 2023

Inequal does not necessarily mean unfair. Can fairness be objectively measured?

Borg: Unstable when Overconnected

Apr 2023

Agent-based simulation of opinions in a social network.

Money is for Sharing

Jan 2023

A thought experiment about a better kind of money.

Moderating a Virtual Town Hall

Nov 2022

Use group memberships to regulate the behavior of attendees.

Head Pose is not Enough

Oct 2022

...and other thoughts on non-verbal communication in VR.

Value Creation in Virtual Worlds

Jul 2022

Notes from opening comments at a recent Metaverse working group meeting.

Thoughts on Moderation and Identity

Mar 2022

In Virtual Worlds, and Beyond.

DIY Money

Oct 2021

Step-by-step instructions to enable free and fair trade for you and your neighbors.

Transaction Tax Dividend

Feb 2021

To counter wealth accumulation and fix capitalism, have transaction fees fund a continuous dividend.

Printing Money Doesn't Help

Feb 2021

Even printing new money and giving it to everyone won't actually help — the rich still get richer.

Why do The Rich Get Richer?

Jan 2021

It is easy to think that policy choices cause the rich to get richer, but it's actually a basic law of free markets.

Three Fun Ways to Use Virtual Worlds and VR at Home

Mar 2020

For those of us kept at home by the virus, some easy and fun ideas for parents and kids.

Quick Hack for Measuring Latency

Feb 2020

In smartphone slo-mo, every frame is 4 milliseconds. Capture and count.

Physics

Jan 2020

Physics is what everyone agrees will happen next.

Metaverse Identity on the Blockchain

Feb 2017

A safe, secure, and decentralized identity system for the metaverse.

VR-controlled Robots Could Save America

Jan 2017

There is an industry to come around tele-operated robots, and it could be a uniquely American industry with jobs for everyone.

Bio

Born in San Diego, the son of a Navy carrier pilot whose deployments took my family all over the United States before returning to San Diego for high school and college. BS Physics, UCSD '92.


Fell in love with coding in middle school, and started a software company in high school which helped me pay for college. Moved to San Francisco in '94, discovered the Internet, and created FreeVue, a videoconferencing app that worked over dialup with the earliest web cameras. Acquired by RealNetworks in late '95, where I led the creation of RealVideo and became CTO.


In '99, I left RealNetworks and founded Linden Lab to create Second Life and fulfill my dream of building a virtual world. After 10 years running Second Life as CEO, I started several experimental new companies with two co-founders, including LoveMachine, Worklist.net, and Coffee & Power. In 2013, after experimenting with the mems gyro chips that would enable the Oculus Rift, we started High Fidelity to build a new open-source virtual world platform for VR Headsets. In 2019, with VR failing to gain wide consumer acceptance, refocused High Fidelity on spatial audio.


In 2022-2024 created a lab in San Francisco working on several new projects, including FairShare, which aims to provide a basic income and reduce wealth inequality using a group-based digital currency. Also helped create CIMC.AI, which is exploring consciousness in machines.


Rejoined Second Life in October 2024 as CTO to help with several new initiatives!

Board & Advisory Roles

Videos & Podcasts

Kevin Rose Foundation Interview thumbnail

Kevin Rose Foundation Interview

A 2011 interview at the under-construction Coffee & Power office at Market & Guerrero.

Watch Video
Second Life - 2008 TED thumbnail

Second Life - 2006 TED

TED video about Second Life

Watch Video
Welcome to Lindenworld! thumbnail

Welcome to Lindenworld!

Original video by James Cook giving a tour of the alpha version features of Second Life.

Watch Video
The Universe, the Brain, and Second Life thumbnail

The Universe, the Brain, and Second Life

An Oxford panel along with Elon Musk and Baroness Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist.

Watch Video
Singularity University: Creation of Second Life thumbnail

Singularity University: Creation of Second Life

Peter Diamandis interviewing me onstage as a tele-operated robot.

Watch Video

Experiments

Interactive Neurons

A spiking neural network simulator where you can drag neurons around, adjust weights, attach input and output keyboard letters, and play around with how this type of neural network learns.

Emergent Coherence

This Shadertoy example is a nearest-neighbor spiking network demonstrating the emergence of a "heartbeat" shortly after starting in a random initial state.

GPU Particles

Particles with flocking and other behaviors, learning GPU coding.

Hierarchical Game of Life

An experimental implementation of Conway's Game of Life with hierarchical structures.

Run Tracker

Run Tracker with no digital exhaust. PWA (add it to your home screen), stores nothing to nowhere, vibe-coded. I've always wanted this and didn't have time to code it. I want to go running, but I don't want to store where I'm running in the f**king cloud.

Jitter

Test for minimal noticeable display jitter for a moving object, with various perceptual metrics.

FairShare Groups

Create groups with their own currencies. Members vote on transaction fees and daily income, endorse new members, and send currency to each other.

SolarBed Mutant Vehicle

In 2019 I built a solar-powered art car for Burning Man, and have upgraded it it various ways each year since.

Patents

Input and Feedback System

2000

Rather than wear gloves and HMDs, immobilize a person and measure the forces they apply to an exoskeleton to move their body in a virtual world. Allows for zero latency as well as inertial mass, haptics, and full body locomotion.

View Patent

Immersive Audio Environments

2014

The first thing we did at High Fidelity was to try to figure out how you could make a huge space where everyone could hear each other, using servers connected together in some way.

View Patent

System and Method for Distributed Simulation

2002

Distributing simulation of a virtual world across tiled servers so you could make a really big space. Still hasn't been replicated broadly in gaming.

View Patent

System and Method for Determining Network Conditions

1997

Back in the days of modems, at RealNetworks, we were trying different ideas to better measure how bad your connection was. This was the idea that if you send two packets at exactly the same time (from a server), you could learn about the speed of the network by looking at the time delay between when they were received.

View Patent