Is this the economy waiting for THIS ?

"...deal with issues relating to the Second Life world itself, such as revenue recognition (Linden Dollars and US Dollars), real-estate sales, micro-currency issues, and monetary policy (including inflation, GDP, consumer price index, etc.). The Vice President of Finance will provide insight and leadership in areas of preventing financial fraud in the Second Life environment, as well as creating a fully functioning in-world economy (e.g. designing a banking and money supply system)."

"...monitoring the in-world economy and suggesting and reviewing management actions..."


That has nothing to do with the in-world economy?

We don't know for sure what they're up to but we do know for sure that long-term they're going to want a safe environment for business to be conducted. The way this job posting reads, it seems that if we don't want this type of oversight from the gods, right now is the time to band together as a user-base and begin to self-regulate. Perhaps if our solutions are good enough, the gods will accept them. Still, maybe not.

I have some ideas on how best to begin this process at my stock exchange in another thread and maybe you could chime in there too.



I think the problem is at GOM. Of course all we can do is speculate.




Propose how. Let's get such a service off the ground. Of course such a resident-run auditing service would have to be totally independant of those being audited. Hmm.



I care more about finding new and creative ways to provide greater levels of transparancy and a greater overall feeling of risk mitigation. This is what will bring the little guy. If high levels of transparancy can be provided solely through self-regulation, fine. Let's get it off the ground. Propose how.




I will rephrase. "go a long way towards stomping out these kinds of theories."



My long-term philosophies are quite different from the current state of the market, as you can probably see in the thread I've linked above. I'm faced with the unfortunate problem that those who follow won't be, probably similar to the problem you experienced at your bank, which is to be right on the bleeding edge and pioneer a whole new segment of the Second Life economy. There are no precedents and there is no manual specific to Second Life and the unique challenges which the platform presents.

The Second Life Stock Exchange will have to get from where it is to where it's going in a series of small, well executed steps. Those who follow will be fortunate to be able to not have to go through as many of the same growing pains, but I look forward to the challenge of trying to keep up and continuing to innovate over at SLSE!

My personal philosophy is in fact that with no oversight or weak oversight there IS no security whatsoever. That said, I am glad to hear that alternate markets with alternate philosophies and points of view on various issues are in the works. This would only be of benefit to would-be investors. As for the SLSE, I will continue to take the small steps mentioned above to eventually move it from where it is now to where I'd like it to be, consistant with my own philosophies and also the varying philosophies of the coming board of directors. With all of this in mind, the SLSE's long-term philosophies include but are certainly not limited to:

* Large and diverse boards of directors, not entirely made up of the individuals who actually manage the company in question from day to day.

* More information available to investors coupled with the HIGHEST levels of transparancy consistant with good business practice.

* The STRONGEST levels of oversight possible within the Second Life environment. Perhaps in time this could even be extended to real life companies and oversight methods. At any rate though, voluntary SL business oversight is an envelope which I feel needs to be pushed hard and pushed soon, whether this takes the form of self-regulation or othersiwse.

* Only listing equity securities for the VERY safest Second Life companies. I get a lot of IMs from people with ideas, and ideas that seem like they COULD be very good. Every time I have one of these conversations though I become more and more convinced that we should highly restrict access to equity listings. I'm not as philosophically opposed to much smaller (by comparison) debt security listings for start-ups and very small yet growing companies though.



In summary of the above, I am actually very much FOR self-regulation. You will probably notice this if you read the thread I've linked. But that said, what I am for, at the end of the day, is (probably voluntary) oversight at the STRONGEST possible level.

I'd love to work on pioneering the field of SL self-regulation and I'm obviously working on this already! That said, if Linden Lab intends to provide direct oversight rather than tools for self-regulation, and that oversight is reasonable, the Second Life Stock Exchange is all for that and will gladly comply. We have nothing to hide, and it would actually have the potential to greatly speed up the process of the exchange getting to where I want it to go.




I perfer to limit my speculation to IM windows, to the extent possible.



It's interesting to note how many times the proposal of taxing all land owners a second time and land barons a third time is coming up lately. Speaking as a land reseller, I already pay a gigantic tax to LL every month in the form of tier. This already eats heavily into margins and is of course already passed along to consumers. Your proposals would cause even MORE fees to be passed along to consumers and also to every land owner in Second Life even in private transactions.

Speaking as a land user, I already pay enough USD tax every month, again in the form of tier. I think an L$ tax would have to be levied against content sales if anything, and even then I'm not entirely sure that a tax makes any sense at all. If land owners are FOR higher prices though, that's fine with me and I will (with some regret) provide them.

I interpreted the job listing as LL seeking a financial manager for LL Corporate and not someone who will influence monetary transactions between residents or in world. That said, my guess is that the VP of Finance will be looking at different business models that will net LL more profit. (In other words, be prepared to pay more money to LL and get less).

On that note, I can only hope they truly find a person with the skills they are advertising for because I have seen some real nightmares pertaining to bean counters and their penchant for cost savings and profit.

As in, say bye bye to any new features and screw the bug fixes, unless they can establish an idea as a self sustaining profit center they will not be allowed to invest the time.

Oh and off shore all the jobs. Let's not forget that as a cost saving tool.

I understand the need for a business model that nets the company a profit and I understand the need to keep costs under control.

Unfortunately, the requirement for greater and greater profit has gone unchecked in too many corporations of recent whereby they have failed to invest in research and development and more importantly, in the people who work for them.

When corporations do this, profit tends to peak and then descend rapidly as the company spins it's wheels trying to develop new products without their R & D team and finds that they are training new people for the same positions over and over again. The customer suffers because they pay more and get less.

Corporate Profit and Growth are good - Corporate Greed sucks and the balance between the two tends to be a fine line.

I got the same thing from the job description. Also from the much quoted answer from a Linden TownHall meeting awhile back "SL is not a game." The seriousnous of this thread in regards to money, investments, etc. kind of makes me step back and say, "Hmm...how much do I want to involve myself in yet ANOTHER system regulated by people I don't vote for, elect, or choose as my leaders?" I can live with Terms of Service/Community Standards agreements. Not sure I like so many other regulations in my "playground".

I don't think you read down far enough.

They list the standard CFO duties in the bullets, but below that, they go into a great deal of detail around the job also requiring financial oversight/strategy/guidance to the SL economy.

Well they way i figure it. LL is keeping the linden ecnomy to hold usesr in while SL grows. Once SL reaches the million user mark, my thought is the LL is going to sell it off to a compnay who wants to run it (Like-Time warner, who will market as the next big thing in business). At some point the whole artifical Linden economy will be supplanted by real currencies and the big corporatiosnwill come in and establish a presence. While the $Linden is the measure of trade, SL is a game. When goods are bought and sold with legal tender it will be a tool.

LL is an innovator and pioneer, they will run SL as long as they need to get it sold of to an administrative group, and then they can focus on the next innovation. In any case, I think massive growth of the user base, and web-on-a-prim capability will circumvent the $linden as the primary SL exchange. The quesion is does this happen in five years or ten?

Or does it happen at all. That is the risk of this entire venture.