Cory Ondrejka - GamesBeat NEXT
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Cory Ondrejka is a Senior Fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change. He currently serves as Vice President of Product Management at Google, where he leads the Core Experience team, responsible for improving the product experience across all of Google’s products, including design systems, front end systems, AI experience infrastructure, metrics, identity, internationalization, equity, and accessibility. In addition, he is a Technical Advisor to the CEO, where he takes on various special projects and focuses on delivering high performance culture at scale. During his tenure, his teams have delivered an entirely new user experience for Google products in Material You, multiple cutting edge Generative AI experiences, and transformed foundational technology depended on by billions of people.
Previously, Cory led the mobile transition at Meta as VP Mobile. Managing simultaneous culture, technical, and product efforts, he transformed Meta from a company that handled mobile experiences as the exception to one where mobile is the foundation of the company. After the mobile transition, he also drove the acquisition of Oculus, laying the foundation for Meta’s move into platforms beyond mobile. Before that, Cory was the co-creator and founding-CTO of Second Life, the pioneering virtual world, where he helped create core technology and also actively worked with government, education, and research users of virtual worlds to advance their understanding.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy and former Naval Officer, Cory has had a long and diverse career across video games, technology startups, music, and education. In addition to Second Life, his video game credits include Magic the Gathering: Armageddon, Road Rash 64, and CMX. He has written on virtual worlds for the New York Law School Law Review, the MIT Press, and the MacArthur Foundation, and was a Visiting Professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He has served on the advisory board of the Oxford Internet Institute and USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. He is currently a board member of Pacific Light and Hologram and an investor in multiple technology startups.