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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#451

Post by namdnay »

version_five wrote: post #173
posharma wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success in the corporate world requires more than technical prowess. One of those things is influence. It's not for everyone.

That can be true, it's also definitely what people say at a failing org that has become bureaucratic and political and doesn't value technical skill. I have seen this first hand. There's such thing as an asshole that nobody can work with of course. But overall it's a red flag when accomplished people leave an org because "it's not for everyone".

I don’t think it’s specific to failing orgs. I doubt technical skill is what gets you to the top at Goldman Sachs, LVMH, VW, the US government, or any other incredibly successful organization. At a certain point of scale, any organization is about politics

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#452

Post by throwaway_8989 »

Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

Throwaway because it could be easy to identify my position from my normal account name.

Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he would say words to the effect of "I don't care, because I still believe I'm right from an ideological background". He would devalue people, there expertise, there experience, and there thoughts because "I'm John Carmack". Truthfully, I have never worked with someone before who was somehow so politely toxic to a workplace.

Carmacks work in VR was absolutely invaluable from a technical standpoint, but VR now is as successful as it is in spite of his influence, not because of it. When I hear people say "If only Meta would let Carmack do what he wants we'd see his ideal VR experience and it would be amazing". You already saw it. It was Oculus Go, and by every metric is was a commercial, financial, and technical, disaster.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#453

Post by vl »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #376
solardev wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m willing to bet that that’s also how Google will be completely disrupted by an AI-first competitor. The execs will be too chicken to kill their current golden goose.

Google far outperforms everyone else in AI.

Search is already heavily ML-powered. Right now it’s impossible to provide ad-sponsored fully-AI-powered search and make it profitable. Remember, you are actually not paying for it at the cost, and users that actually click ads are subsidizing you.

But when it will be possible, Google is going to be in perfect position to capitalize on it.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#454

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #72
modeless wrote: post #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://twi…

It's very interesting to me that he's giving up on VR entirely. If he thought it was just an issue with Facebook, presumably he'd jump in somewhere else and get the impact he was looking to have. That's another sign to me that VR is once again not going anywhere. Or rather, half of it isn't. Oculus-style VR is two best in one: 3D persistent virtual worlds and stereoscopic facehugger interfaces. The former has had gre…

[deleted]

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#455

Post by dmix »

pharmakom wrote: post #448
berniedurfee wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like “Success Theater,” where everyone always reports green lights up the chain of command, until it’s too late and the show ends abruptly and poorly. It’s a poison that seems to seep into organizations as they get larger. I once gave a talk about “Enterprise Entrepreneurs” after being labeled as one. It can be a good approach to prevent stagnation as grass-roots initiatives often generate great ideas in…

I’ve never understood “enterprise entrepreneurs” or “intrapreneurship” from the perspective of the employee. The massive potential upside for a success just isn’t there compared to founding your own start-up, so why do it?

The best answer I could come up with: it's not your typical employees who are going to be doing that. Employees are employees. Typically you want someone who is about to leave the company because they are bored and want to do something interesting...and they have an idea (or you give them an idea) that excites them.

So instead of VCs you invest company capital into them.

Obviously 99% of the time employees just leave and startups win the day. Which is fine. But that's basically just how it is. So you either adapt or die until the monopoly/cash cow runs its course.

Facebook turning into Meta making the 'startup' be the whole companies mission is a bold new idea, which I'm skeptical can work. But it's interesting.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#456

Post by eyko »

throwaway_8989 wrote: post #452
Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

Throwaway because it could be easy to identify my position from my normal account name. Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he…

No post body was provided.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#457

Post by felipellrocha »

throwaway_8989 wrote: post #452
Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

Throwaway because it could be easy to identify my position from my normal account name. Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he…

If i had nickel for every time i had been in a conversation where someone “proved they were right” even though they were nowhere near there, ok, i wouldn’t have millions but I’d have somewhere in the $50s which is a lot higher than you’d expect

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#458

Post by earthnail »

eyko wrote: post #456
throwaway_8989 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway because it could be easy to identify my position from my normal account name. Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he…

Quoted post unavailable.

Big corps usually prohibit their employees from expressing their personal opinions. It’s sometimes tolerated but always against the employment contract. So whenever you’re saying something, bigcorp could decide that “this one’s too far”. On a topic with as much PR as this one, it’s rather dangerous to comment on if you gave a medium-to-high level position.

The reason big corps do it is so that their PR department has ANY chance of sending a coherent message. So it’s not even evil behaviour IMHO.

All that to say, I understand why they used an anonymous account. Of course, that doesn’t mean one has to believe them, it’s their word against Carmack’s. But it’s good to hear that perspective IMO.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#459

Post by bambataa »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #193
yawnxyz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's so wild to me that FAANG has these hiring walls set up — like crazy coding challenges — only for the best engineers to then do work equivalent to what you see at gov't or consulting jobs. Why do they make it so hard to work for them, just for their employees to play status games?

So FAANG has set themselves up to hire retain sharp STEM grads who are savvy at politics. That’s a very small subset of the STEM population. Small anecdote : I’ve noticed that Ivy leaguers tend to be very polished and particularly good at the game.

Another way of phrasing it is “sharp STEM grass with strong interpersonal skills”, which seems like a good thing?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#460

Post by woadwarrior01 »

icoder wrote: post #429
khazhoux wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed. This doesn't actually surprise me in the least bit, and that's not a criticism of either FB/Meta or Carmack. It's simply that after a couple of decades in industry, I now see that effective organizational leaders are exceedingly rare, and I've seen now many super-expe…

Someone on Reddit coined the term 'institutional inertia', which probably applies here too.

That term is apt for Reddit's engineering teams as well.
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