The DeanBeat: How Oculus’ Mike Abrash took my mind off Palmer Luckey

If anyone could take my mind off the missing-in-action Palmer Luckey at the Oculus Connect conference, it was Michael Abrash, chief scientist of Oculus, the maker of the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift. Even though he was as sick as a dog on stage, Abrash gave a brilliant talk that laid the future path for virtual reality and inspired developers to join in the VR crusade. That is exactly what Oculus needed to do after Luckey angered many developers.

A lot of people were upset with Luckey after a report from news site The Daily Beast that revealed he spent $10,000 to fund a pro-Trump group. Nimble America wants to influence the election by running anti-Hillary Clinton internet memes and images on billboards to reach people in swing states like Pennsylvania. With the election coming up, Luckey wisely chose to stay off stage. Max Cohen, vice president of mobile at Oculus, told me, “He didn’t want to be a distraction.”

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.