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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#2
There is a pay wall, so I haven't read the article. I just want to put it out there: Did this seem predictable to anyone? I had the sense he was unsatisfied and Meta's public perception, particularly in Carmack's department, seemed to be plummeting. It seemed very likely that this would happen, but maybe I'm projecting too much. I imagined myself being deeply ungratified in his role.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#4
He just founded a new company called Keen Technologies to work on AGI. Not surprising that he wants to focus on that now. He's been part-time at Meta for years. I'm interested to find out what kind of business model he's planning for an AGI company.

Edit: he posted his leaving message publicly here: https://www.facebook.com/100006735798590/posts/pfbid0iPixEvP...

Additional public comments on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1603931901491908610

> As anyone who listens to my unscripted Connect talks knows, I have always been pretty frustrated with how things get done at FB/Meta. Everything necessary for spectacular success is right there, but it doesn't get put together effectively.

> I thought that the "derivative of delivered value" was positive in 2021, but that it turned negative in 2022. There are good reasons to believe that it just edged back into positive territory again, but there is a notable gap between Mark Zuckerberg and I on various strategic issues, so I knew it would be extra frustrating to keep pushing my viewpoint internally. I am all in on building AGI at Keen Technologies now.

@dang can you change the link to one of these?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#5
“During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset. He admitted he had many things to be ‘grumpy’ about, like the company's rate of progress on technological advancements and the basic functionality of the headsets. He said it was frustrating to hear from people inside Meta who found the Quest 2 headsets so unreliable that they refused to use them for work or demo them for people outside the company.”

Has anyone tried accounting for the tens of billions of dollars Facebook is spending on this? This pattern—massive outlays followed by poor, possibly-rushed possibly-underpowered workmanship—sounds remarkably like corruption.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#6

There is a pay wall, so I haven't read the article. I just want to put it out there: Did this seem predictable to anyone? I had the sense he was unsatisfied and Meta's public perception, particularly in Carmack's department, seemed to be plummeting. It seemed very likely that this would happen, but maybe I'm projecting too much. I imagined myself being deeply ungratified in his role.

It always seemed like a poor fit to me. From the begining, Facebook has always been an unctuous, slimy organization and Carmack seems to be a relatively high-integrity human. I'm honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#7
Basically Carmack is frustrated by:

1. Rate of progress on AR/VR at meta

2. People within Meta not "Giving a Dam!" / Poor decisions made within the org

3. Poor quality of the execution which I guess is related to #2

Relevant quote: "It pains me to hear people say that they don't even get their headset out to show off at the company because they know it's going to be a mess of charging and updating before they can make it do something cool," Carmack said at the time. "VR should be a delight to demo for your friends."

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#8

“During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset. He admitted he had many things to be ‘grumpy’ about, like the company's rate of progress on technological advancements and the basic functionality of the headsets. He said it was frustrating to hear from people inside Meta who found the Quest 2 headsets so unreliable that they refused to u…

All the money in the world can't buy talent. If the talented people don't want to work for or with you, then you end up just burning through cash while the untalented/less talented deliver a subpar product.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#9

“During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset. He admitted he had many things to be ‘grumpy’ about, like the company's rate of progress on technological advancements and the basic functionality of the headsets. He said it was frustrating to hear from people inside Meta who found the Quest 2 headsets so unreliable that they refused to u…

Or the typical poor execution at extremely large tech companies. Where various people have incentives that aren't aligned with the overall objective of making a good product. Instead people are incentivized to empire build and be self serving.
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