Oculus' Unlikely First Hire

Palmer Luckey shares the story of his first hire at Oculus, who was a moderator from his gaming forum.

"The first person I hired for Oculus was one of the other moderators. I sent him a message saying 'Hey what are you doing this fall?' and he said 'Oh I'm starting college.' I said 'No you're not, you're gonna come work for me.'

I literally told him that on a Friday, and I drove out in my minivan to pick him up from his mom's house on Monday. He had all his stuff in like 4 boxes. I picked him up, we got in my van, and we drove to the condemned motel that I was living in.

His name was Chris Dicus. He had never built a head mounted display, but he was very accomplished in the game console modding scene. He had built a lot of handheld vintage game consoles. I knew he was very competent because I had been seeing his work published on the forum over the course of years. I knew he had skills and work ethic.

You talk about a job interview where you meet someone for maybe an hour, but I had been seeing this guy's work published on the forum over years, so I knew exactly what he could do."