Palmer Luckey

If I grew up in 'da hood,' it would make my story so much more interesting - if I had something to escape from. I had a pretty good life. My parents weren't rich; they weren't poor. I wasn't trying to escape from anything. It was always just the pursuit of something cooler.

I was interested in virtual reality for several years even before working at USC, it wasn't an interest that started there at all. In fact, when I started working at USC, I already had prototypes of the Rift that were very similar to the final design.

Virtual reality is a tough sell for a software developer. They have to convince investors that not only are they going to build a good game, which is what they normally have to do, they have to convince them that it's going to be a good game and that virtual reality will be successful.

My first job in TV was hosting this young teen magazine show, and all these high school teenagers showed up from all over Sacramento, California, and they chose four of us to host the show, two boys and two girls. And of the two girls, I was kind of the perky smart one and the other girl was the pretty one.