Oculus and Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey once said that bosses who downplay money should raise red flags for employees — advice shaped by his journey from living in a camper to selling Oculus VR for $2 billion.
From Minimum Wage To A $2 Billion Oculus Deal
Before becoming a billionaire entrepreneur, Luckey was a teenager living in a 19-foot camper trailer, working minimum wage jobs at a boat yard and fixing electronics on the side.
In a podcast interview with My First Million, Luckey said he poured nearly all his earnings into virtual reality research, often leaving only a few hundred dollars in his bank account.
“I was also fixing computers on the side for a while. I’d been buying broken iPhones, fixing them and unlocking them, selling those for spare cash,” he stated.
When he launched Oculus in 2012, the company kept salaries modest. “We decided nobody in the company was going to make over $100,000,” Luckey said, describing what they called the “100K Club.” At the time, earning six figures felt extraordinary.
In 2014, Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in cash and stock.
Money Is A Fiscally Responsible Decision
Luckey disagrees with the tendency of those companies and founders who say that money isn’t the goal.
“If you work at a place where your boss is saying that, you should be worried,” he said, referring to leaders who insist money doesn’t matter.
While such messaging may play well publicly, he argued it sends the wrong signal to employees.
“You’re trying to make their job a fiscally responsible decision,” Luckey said, adding that suggesting financial success isn’t a priority implies workers could earn more elsewhere.
Why Facebook’s Billions Mattered For VR’s Survival
During the conversation, Luckey said selling Oculus wasn’t primarily about his personal payout. Instead, he believed virtual reality required billions in sustained investment to compete with tech giants like Google and Microsoft.
Facebook, he said, had the strongest incentive to disrupt the existing computing landscape. Without those resources, Luckey said, “I’m not convinced that Oculus would still be around.”
Luckey later founded defense startup Anduril Industries in 2017, which was valued at $30.5 billion in its latest funding round.
Luckey has a net worth of $3.5 billion, ranking him No. 1,187 in the world, according to Forbes.
Image via Shutterstock/ Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
