Our own Cory Ondrejka has left Linden Lab, and the SL blogosphere is abuzz. News reports can be found at CNET and InformationWeek, for starters. Best of luck to Cory -- like many I'll be eager to see what he does next (beyond take a cushy quasi-academic break somewhere, à la Al Gore ;-) ).
As for Linden Lab, if interested folks would like to muse about what this might mean for it and Second Life, please feel free to weigh in.