# Brendan Iribe

> Brendan Iribe is the co-founder and CEO of Sesame, an AI company developing conversational agents and eyewear. He previously co-founded and led Oculus VR, co-founded game interface maker Scaleform, worked at Gaikai, and races sports cars with Inception Racing.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Sesame
- **Organizations:** Sesame, Oculus VR, Scaleform, Gaikai, BIG Ventures, Inception Racing
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Computer science studies; withdrew after freshman year, University of Maryland, College Park
- **Known for:** Co-founded Scaleform, acquired by Autodesk in 2011 for $36 million., Co-founded Oculus VR and served as CEO through Facebook’s announced $2 billion acquisition in 2014., Pledged $31 million to the University of Maryland for a computer science building and scholarships.

## Career timeline

- **1997** — Met Michael Antonov and Andrew Reisse at the University of Maryland.
- **1999** — Founded SonicFusion with university friends; it later became Scaleform.
- **2011** — Scaleform was acquired by Autodesk for $36 million.
- **2011-2012** — Worked at cloud gaming company Gaikai; Sony acquired it in 2012.
- **2012** — Joined Palmer Luckey, Nate Mitchell and Michael Antonov to found Oculus VR and launch the Rift Kickstarter.
- **2014** — Facebook announced a roughly $2 billion acquisition of Oculus; Iribe pledged $31 million to the University of Maryland.
- **2018** — Departed Facebook/Oculus.
- **2023** — Co-founded Sesame with Ankit Kumar and Ryan Brown.
- **2024** — Took LMGT3 pole with Inception Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- **2025** — Sesame introduced its Maya and Miles voice research preview; Inception Racing won GTD at Indianapolis.
- **2026** — Sesame launched an iOS mobile preview and published TurnBench research on spoken turn taking.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Scaleform, acquired by Autodesk in 2011 for $36 million.
- Co-founded Oculus VR and served as CEO through Facebook’s announced $2 billion acquisition in 2014.
- Pledged $31 million to the University of Maryland for a computer science building and scholarships.
- Co-founded Sesame in 2023 and leads its work on conversational AI and eyewear.
- Earned LMGT3 pole at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans with Inception Racing.
- Won the GTD class at the 2025 Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis with Inception Racing.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Sesame published TurnBench, a benchmark focused on timing and turn taking in spoken dialogue.
- **2026-05** — Sesame introduced its iOS mobile preview with four voice agents and outlined plans for eyewear in 2027.
- **2025-09** — Iribe’s Inception Racing crew won GTD at Indianapolis in the IMSA Battle on the Bricks.

## Links

- Website: https://www.sesame.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendaniribe
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/brendaniribe

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/brendan-iribe
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-29