Brendan Iribe, a co-founder of Oculus VR and a prominent University of Maryland donor, is leaving Facebook four years after it purchased his company.
Iribe, a former university student, has donated millions to the school since he dropped out in 1998. Construction on a building bearing his name is well underway, as the school grapples with a computer science major that’s more crowded than ever before.
TechCrunch reported Monday that Iribe’s exit comes after a shakeup at Facebook that led to the cancellation of the “Rift 2 PC-powered virtual reality headset,” which Iribe had been working on.
[Read more: The University of Maryland could get a major about virtual reality design]
“While we can’t comment on our product roadmap specifics, we do have future plans, and can confirm that we are planning for a future version of Rift,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Iribe is the third major Facebook acquisition founder to leave the tech giant recently. The two co-founders of Instagram announced they were heading out the door in September.
“[T]his will be the first real break I’ve taken in over 20 years,” Iribe wrote Monday in a Facebook post about his departure. “It’s time to recharge, reflect and be creative. I’m excited for the next chapter.”
Iribe was previously the CEO of Oculus, which Facebook purchased for $2 billion in 2014. He was made the head of Oculus’ PC VR division in 2016.
Palmer Luckey, Iribe’s co-founder, also left Facebook in 2017 after reports surfaced that he financially supported groups and candidates favoring President Trump.
[Read more: Female computer science students want to fix the gender gap in their major]
In 2014, Iribe donated $31 million to this university, then the largest gift in school history. The vast majority of the donation went toward building the Iribe Center, a new computer science building slated to open in 2019, with the rest establishing a $1 million scholarship fund for computer science students. And in 2017, he gave $500,000 to encourage the participation of women and other underrepresented students in computer science initiatives.
In fall 2017, 2,958 undergraduate students — about 10 percent of the student body — had computer science as their primary major, according to the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment. The university plans to make computer science a limited enrollment program in fall 2019, which will restrict the number of students in the major.