High Fidelity has approximately 50 employees working in engineering, product management, and customer service. We are a close knit group focused on building a genuinely free and permissionless solution for virtual reality. Our office is located in the west SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco, near BART and Caltrain.
The company has developed an open-source application for building and deploying virtual environments (domains) to desktop and server computers. The virtual domains are designed to be social and interactive, meaning they allow for the real-time addition, rearrangement, and gross modification of 3D assets simultaneously by multiple users. Our goal is to deploy an open, flexible platform for a variety of VR applications rather than a specific, narrow VR experience.
Prior to High Fidelity, Rosedale created the virtual civilization Second Life, populated by one million active users generating US$700M in annual transaction volumes. In addition to numerous technology inventions (including the video conferencing product called FreeVue, acquired by RealNetworks in 1996 where Rosedale later served as CTO), Rosedale has also worked on experiments in distributed work and computing.
Freidrica’s background spans technology, finance, business operations, and music production. Prior to High Fidelity, she served as COO of CIBT, a $200M PE-backed rollup in the travel industry. She also co-founded Siren Systems, a digital music company, and led Accenture’s eCommerce management consulting practice. Freidrica received her B.A. in economics from Harvard University and her M.B.A. from Kellogg.
"Prior to working at High Fidelity, Ryan worked as Chief of Staff and Head of Product at Linden Lab, maker of Second Life. While there, he oversaw product development and content production operations during a period of explosive growth in user generated content.
Prior to working at Linden Lab, Ryan was a successful recording artist with Island Records, releasing multiple recordings featured on MTV and in television."
It takes a mix of visionaries and builders with unshakable resolve to bet long on Virtual Reality. From its founding in 2013, High Fidelity has assembled a resonant group of conspirators, united by a shared conviction that it’s time to get busy and build the rich virtual worlds and experiences promised by fiction for decades.
We don’t always know what’s over the next hill, or what the path looks like to get there, but we are wholeheartedly committed to the adventure of figuring it out.