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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#471

Post by worldsayshi »

cauthon wrote: post #319
methodical wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you solve a few more problems" The amount of work done by these 7 words is incredible. ChatGPT is far from changing a "lot" of industries. Still pathetic at programming (which isn't its purpose, but is AlphaCode's purpose; which also sucks), use of it for copy writing is nullified since it seems Google will crack down on AI generated copy writing. DALL-E is also a nice party trick but far from being particularl…

The forever relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1831/

It's worth it to try with fresh eyes though right? Maybe you get lucky?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#472

Post by trevyn »

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…

Why was the Oculus Go considered a failure?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#473

Post by tinco »

khazhoux wrote: post #428
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…

> 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…

Carmack is an absolute genius and it would be madness to disregard anything he's spent any significant amount of time thinking about.

But let's be real, he isn't Tim Sweeny or Gabe Newell. As smart he is, I don't think he is even top 3 in the best business decision makers of his specific field of first person shooter game developers. His track record is that using his tremendous skill he caught one of the biggest waves, and he's been riding that out and catching smaller waves ever since. I don't even think he didn't see the larger subsequent waves that Sweeney and Newell saw, I think he just wasn't interested in them.

Was he interested in catching big waves for Facebook, or was he interested in pursuing his specific vision?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#474

Post by HellDunkel »

kubb wrote: post #466
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…

HN is all about that cult of personality, we want to believe in heroic programmers (or founders) who singlehandedly change the world with their geinus clarity. Paul Graham said this, John Carmack said that and we lap it all up. It's been this way since the ancient times, and the stories of Hercules and Theseus. We mythologize these personalities, and in our mind they become demigods. But there's a reason the folk wis…

Well said but we don’t know for sure if the above is true. Carmack is a genious programmer and rather than trash him right away we should acknowledge that his job was hard- very hard. In any biography the failures are way more interesting than the successes. The ancient greek understood that pretty well.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#475

Post by khazhoux »

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.

Then we should dismiss your critique of his critique, since you are also anonymous :-)

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#476

Post by johnnyanmac »

earthnail wrote: post #458
eyko wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't disagree, and I was in a similar position not too long ago.

But it also doesn't change the fact that this is ultimately hearsay. Maybe this was someone who butted heads and ultimately had the better idea go by the wayside because they lacked clout. Maybe they are a gilted employee whose full story would make them feel like how they described Carmack. We don't know and on the internet it's way too easy to pretend to that sabetour who never even worked at Meta but is very angry about some design decision in Quake 3.

There's ultimately no good way to do PR as a non-PR employee for that reason, even if the big corp allowed it. You either put your name on the line or you just say nothing. Most employees choose the latter. Your best bet if you have any real evidence and want impact is to seek a journalist for coverage and anonymity.

Anything else is simply a footnote to keep in mind until (if ever) some big bust happened.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#477

Post by joaoqalves »

This reminds me that no matter who you are, solving problems in big companies requires an insane amount of persuasion work. Storytelling and aligning people on why something is essential becomes the job rather than the vision to solve it.

Corollary: if people don't agree on the problem to solve and its importance, solutions heavily tend to fail.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#478

Post by HellDunkel »

tinco wrote: post #473
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…

Carmack is an absolute genius and it would be madness to disregard anything he's spent any significant amount of time thinking about. But let's be real, he isn't Tim Sweeny or Gabe Newell. As smart he is, I don't think he is even top 3 in the best business decision makers of his specific field of first person shooter game developers. His track record is that using his tremendous skill he caught one of the biggest wav…

Doom kicked ass not because it was trying to catch big waves but because they followed their specific vision. Making shit tons of money is not everything.

Agree that Sweeney seems to be the better captain. And he left carmack in the dust with unreal.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#479

Post by CynicusRex »

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

#480

Post by johnnyanmac »

kubb wrote: post #466
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…

HN is all about that cult of personality, we want to believe in heroic programmers (or founders) who singlehandedly change the world with their geinus clarity. Paul Graham said this, John Carmack said that and we lap it all up. It's been this way since the ancient times, and the stories of Hercules and Theseus. We mythologize these personalities, and in our mind they become demigods. But there's a reason the folk wis…

Carmack aside, I think the "never meet your heroes" thing is even simpler: no one's perfect. Your hero could have cured cancer but maybe they're a nervous wreck in public. Or aren't native to your area and may commuicate badly face to face for culture clashing reasons. Or maybe they are great in a small intimate team but completely fall apart in a large setting. Heck it could be as simple as finding out they are a heavy smoker or an alcoholic.

The common stereotype is "heroes are narcissitic and have skeletons in the closet", but there are valid reasons for an otherwise good person to fail in what may be common sense to others.

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