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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#241
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FB culture is way too positive and happy oh wow.. never thought they could be happy at FB

Didn’t they win best place to work at many years ago?

Before 2016, it was a great place.

At least, the kool-aid tasted great.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#242
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a classic middle management malaise where everyone gets paid so well they don’t want to stir the pot? The bureaucracy and protection of today’s money cows which only clouds them from seeing tomorrow’s cows that will rescue them from certain obscurity? The Clayton M Christensen solution to big companies ignoring obvious problems is to have isolated small teams “infrapreneurship” who aren’t under the pressures…

Is that how Google ended up with eight chat apps while Search gets worse and worse every year?

No post body was provided.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#244
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isn't alone. A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible. I left a year ago, and I've become beyond happy.

Is this a classic middle management malaise where everyone gets paid so well they don’t want to stir the pot? The bureaucracy and protection of today’s money cows which only clouds them from seeing tomorrow’s cows that will rescue them from certain obscurity? The Clayton M Christensen solution to big companies ignoring obvious problems is to have isolated small teams “infrapreneurship” who aren’t under the pressures…

This is it. No one is restless, and ruthless pragmatism runs things.

I was fortunate as I joined a team that was growing and had heat under them which gave me opportunities to go ham in a space I care about.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isn't alone. A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible. I left a year ago, and I've become beyond happy.

> FB culture is way too positive and happy oh wow.. never thought they could be happy at FB

The sort of person applying to work at FB probably has a rather better opinion of them than the average HN commenter.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#247
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a classic middle management malaise where everyone gets paid so well they don’t want to stir the pot? The bureaucracy and protection of today’s money cows which only clouds them from seeing tomorrow’s cows that will rescue them from certain obscurity? The Clayton M Christensen solution to big companies ignoring obvious problems is to have isolated small teams “infrapreneurship” who aren’t under the pressures…

Is that how Google ended up with eight chat apps while Search gets worse and worse every year?

Monopolies tend to stick around much longer than other industries despite their lack of competence. Clayton’s book was mostly about Intel which operated in a competitive market with AMD and others.

DuckDuckGo is great but it’s not nipping at their heels meaningfully.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I left FAANG basically because you had to play the politics and self-promotion game to get promoted. I have no reason to doubt that in the particular corner of your organization that may well have been the case, but you cannot generalize this over the whole field. As stated elsewhere, I never played any game to be promoted, I simply never consciously sought the goal of promotion, and I was promoted anyway just beca…

We have multiple people giving their anecdotes saying big tech positions emphasize self-promotion, and one anecdote (yours) saying they don't. So, sincere question: for those of us who haven't worked at a FAANG, why should we believe that your experience is the norm while the other people's is the "corner"?

People who don’t get promoted are likely to complain about it — often that the system was out to get them. I mean how often do you hear somebody go, “Yeah I was passed over for a promotion and you know what, I didn’t deserve it.” People who do get promoted at a FAANG (either by self-promotion or not) probably don’t want to brag about it because of the general sentiment here at HN.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I left FAANG basically because you had to play the politics and self-promotion game to get promoted. I have no reason to doubt that in the particular corner of your organization that may well have been the case, but you cannot generalize this over the whole field. As stated elsewhere, I never played any game to be promoted, I simply never consciously sought the goal of promotion, and I was promoted anyway just beca…

We have multiple people giving their anecdotes saying big tech positions emphasize self-promotion, and one anecdote (yours) saying they don't. So, sincere question: for those of us who haven't worked at a FAANG, why should we believe that your experience is the norm while the other people's is the "corner"?

There is an obvious selection bias in who posts. Anyway I also never seeked promotion (even tried to avoid it) but have been promoted four times now. I never chase glory and only focus on quality engineering and I’ve always gotten credit.
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