Brendan Trexler Iribe (; born August 12, 1979) is an American game programmer, racing driver, entrepreneur and co-founder of Oculus VR, Inc. and Scaleform. He is the managing partner at BIG Ventures, an early-stage venture fund.
Early life and education Iribe was born and grew up in Maryland. He graduated from Atholton High School in Howard County, Maryland and then attended the University of Maryland, College Park, majoring in Computer Science which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences in College Park for two semesters before dropping out to work as a freelance programmer.
Career Iribe started his career as a game programmer and worked on the user interface of Civilization IV. He was cofounder/CEO of Scaleform, a user interface technology provider for PC games. After Scaleform was sold to Autodesk, he worked as product team lead at Gaikai. In August 2012, he departed Gaikai and became the new CEO of Oculus VR after their Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift VR Headset raised $2.4 million. In December 2016, he stepped down from the role of CEO and decided to lead its newly created PC VR group. In October 2018, Brendan announced in a Facebook post he would be departing Oculus and its parent company Facebook, with no mention of future plans. In December 2018, he invested in Sketchfab, an online platform for 3D and VR content. In June 2023, Iribe co-founded Sesame, a product and research team for AI glasses.
Philanthropy In 2014 Iribe announced a $31 million dollar donation to his alma mater, University of Maryland, College Park. $30 million was for the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a new building which includes labs for virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, and artificial intelligence. The remaining $1 million was donated to establish a scholarship fund. Iribe's mother, Elizabeth Iribe, also gave $3 million to set up two endowed chairs in the school's computer science department - the Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair and the Paul Chrisman Iribe Chair (named after her brother).
Racing record Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results Since departing Oculus in 2018, Iribe has focused his time on racing exotic cars manufactured by companies like McLaren and Ferrari.
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap) Year Team Class Make Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Points 2021 Inception Racing with Optimum Motorsport GTD McLaren 720S GT3 McLaren M840T 4.0L Turbo V8 DAY SEB MDO DET WGL WGL LIM ELK LGA LBH VIR PET 63rd 209 2022 Inception Racing GTD McLaren 720S GT3 McLaren M840T 4.0L Turbo V8 DAY SEB LBH LGA MDO DET WGL MOS LIM ELK VIR PET2 12th 16442023Inception RacingGTDMcLaren 720S GT3 EvoMcLaren M840T 4.0 L Turbo V8 DAY3SEB4 LBH6 MON5 WGL15 MOS2 LIM13 ELK2 VIR7 IMS16 PET19 6th 28532024Inception RacingGTDMcLaren 720S GT3 EvoMcLaren M840T 4.0 L Turbo V8 DAY SEB LBH LGA WGL MOS ELK VIR 9th 2308Ferrari 296 GT3Ferrari F163CE 3.0L Turbo V6 IMS PET2025Inception RacingGTDFerrari 296 GT3Ferrari F163CE 3.0L Turbo V6 DAY19SEB4LBH8LGA15WGL2MOS6ELK13VIR11IMS1PET1810th2405 2026 Inception Racing GTD Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo Ferrari F163CE 3.0 L Turbo V6 DAY SEB LBH LGA WGL MOS ELK VIR IMS PET 6th 2398Source:
Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps 2021 Inception Racing Ben Barnicoat Ollie Millroy Ferrari 488 GTE Evo GTEAm 327 41st 12th 2022 Team Project 1 Ben Barnicoat Ollie Millroy Porsche 911 RSR-19 GTEAm 241 DNF DNF 2024 Inception Racing Ollie Millroy Frederik Schandorff McLaren 720S GT3 Evo LMGT3 275 40th 13thSource:
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