Corporate Culture
Linden Lab has elicited both compliments and curiosity for its unconventional corporate culture, which is based on a non-hierarchical system where employees are unusually self-directed and transparent in their work. The company makes a strong effort to maintain transparency among its employees and to the general public.
Linden Lab utilizes another internal tool, known as the Distributor, that enables all employees to distribute "points" to projects that they deem to be worthy of development and resource support. Each point has a financial value that is based on each quarter's financial performance. As a result, key stakeholders in the projects with high point values receive a distributed monetary payoff at the end of the quarter for successfully completed projects. The Distributor was discontinued after Rosedale left the company.
In addition, each employee's quarterly performance review is published on a Wikipedia-like internal Web site for all other employees to see.
Employees of Linden Lab, who are easily identifiable inworld since their avatars bear the last name Linden, have been known to participate in several collaborative events with Second Life users. For example, the company holds an annual holiday "snowball fight" where users are encouraged to throw virtual snowballs at Linden Lab employees.
Read more about this topic: Linden Lab
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