John Carmack Leaves Meta • Hacker News Board

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#551

Post by ghosty141 » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

heather45879 wrote: post #543

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…

Honestly no one really cares about VR that’s the problem. It’s cool in concept but whose going to shell out cash to be tethered to a machine wearing goggles sitting in a chair? AR has potential but even that is marginally better than alternative solutions. Also, I don’t know about y’all but I don’t trust Facebook so I don’t trust Meta. They are a data-leach. We still probably have a decade or more to go with this tec…

VR shines in simulators, flighing, driving etc, there the immersion is key but thats really the only domain in private life where VR really works.

In corporate there are bunch of neat areas but AR is defintely more useful right now. E.g. support, meetings, teaching

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#552

Post by eternalban » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #342

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This pattern—massive outlays followed by poor, possibly-rushed possibly-underpowered workmanship—sounds remarkably like corruption. I worked at a medium-sized company that went through a phase of hiring ex-FAANG people, thinking we'd improve our quality by implementing FAANG practices. It did the opposite: The ex-FAANG people were absolutely masterful at self-promotion, office politics, and collecting wins for them…

Dang, man. Where do you work that this ruthless self promotion (and denigration of all else) is not the norm? That’s been my experience throughout my 27 years, in 3 Fortune 250’s AND 2 mom-and-pop’s.

This closely matches my experience as well.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#553

Post by photochemsyn » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

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…

If you want a hero to idolize, select someone who's been dead for at least 100 years. Most of their foibles will be public knowledge by that time, so you probably won't be in for any rude surprises.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#554

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

eddiewithzato wrote: post #549

danuker wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I couldn't believe Facebook bet so much on VR, and especially a low-quality 3D MMORPG full of micropayments. With no LEGS. How long have video game characters had legs?? I feel dizzy even playing Minecraft on a plain screen. I won't ever buy VR goggles. Let alone ones bound to a Facebook account.

Zuck must’ve been high when OKing VR, I still think Google Glass is the way forward with augmented reality. Very comfortable and isn’t trying to rewrite how humans communicate. I have VR and it is immersive, but way too uncomfortable.

[deleted]

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#555

Post by JohnBooty » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

heather45879 wrote: post #543

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…

Honestly no one really cares about VR that’s the problem. It’s cool in concept but whose going to shell out cash to be tethered to a machine wearing goggles sitting in a chair? AR has potential but even that is marginally better than alternative solutions. Also, I don’t know about y’all but I don’t trust Facebook so I don’t trust Meta. They are a data-leach. We still probably have a decade or more to go with this tec…

    Honestly no one really cares about VR that’s the problem.

I feel like this is definitely the elephant in the room everybody is ignoring. Almost nobody gives a hoot about VR!

I'm a software engineer with a lot of (surprise, surprise) nerdy/geeky/whatever friends and interest in VR is close to zero. A few friends vouched for various games like Half-Life:Alyx and Beat Saber, but nobody was claiming it was a life altering experience and nobody is clamoring to live more of their lives in VR. VR definitely makes a great game controller for some kinds of games and there are even a few killer apps, but I mean like... Wii Sports was a "killer app" for motion controls and that doesn't mean it was a technology that shaped our lives in the long run.

And needless to say non-technical folks have less than zero interest in strapping a computer to their head and face.

God bless John Carmack, but it feels like he and FB are arguing about execution issues on a product nobody cared about in the first place.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#556

Post by gsatic » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

mach1ne wrote: post #529

bsenftner wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work with John Carmack, but I had a meeting with him once. He is brilliant, no doubt, but he is exactly like every single engineer with no professional communications training. He struggles to make his points in everyday developer language, when he needs to speak more calculated, more measured, and with significantly more audience empathy. Just like 99% of us technologists. We're an industry of weak communica…

I think the notion of developers being 'weak communicators' is a bit too simplified. It suggests that if developers were better communicators, then things would move faster & better forward. But the fact is that the audience of non-developers tends to have a completely different mode of thinking, and indeed a different set of targets. Developers would like to see organizations as machines to give instructions to. Non…

Good analogy. Ideally ladders are designed based on problem type - simple to complex. But in corporate wonderland, the ladder climbers regularly change that ideal to stay on the ladder.

You dont need a miracle. You just need to recognize early, who the most mindlessly ambitious over energetic unimaginative people, in the room are and keep them on leash/direct the energies away from ladder reconfig.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#557

Post by aswanson » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

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…

Yep. There are lots of talented people, programming wise, who can't communicate vision, lead, or inspire teams. These are mostly orthogonal to technical skill, but are extremely important if you're building something that requires more than one person.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#558

Post by aswanson » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #523

comfypotato wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of upsetting this thread’s balance and reducing it to negativity: I prefer your parent comment’s interpretation of the Go. “Ahead of its time”? Technology is the last space where a newfangled product would lose momentum by being released to early. I’m open to being proved ignorant here. Can you think of some examples where tech was obviously ahead of its time and not accepted? Subscription music services like…

> Can you think of some examples where tech was obviously ahead of its time and not accepted? Uh yeah, VR itself as a concept and models of VR have been live since the 80s but were especially hyped in the 90s but never went anywhere beyond amusement parks and arcades. And no one wanted to touch VR in the 00s despite huge leaps in processing power. I would even argue the original Macintosh was ahead of its time, maybe…

Beta max vs VHS is another one.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#559

Post by dpkirchner » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #254

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…

I have a genuine question about what to do when one finds oneself in this type of position and one is surrounded by people who seemingly do give a damn (and one isn't compelled to just give up and leave). In my experience, the software industry, in it’s aggressive desire to be egalitarian, has an authority problem. I have encountered the “I told you so one year ago but we just had to learn the hard way didn't we” sit…

> Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he?

I wonder if his schedule played some part. He worked there for one day a week. I could see it being really difficult to understand his vision if you have to wait 7 days to ask a follow-up*, for example. And it's gotta be close to impossible to move the needle on existing culture if you're barely around.

* and while you wait there are plenty of other people around to ask instead

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#560

Post by ghaff » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #523

comfypotato wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of upsetting this thread’s balance and reducing it to negativity: I prefer your parent comment’s interpretation of the Go. “Ahead of its time”? Technology is the last space where a newfangled product would lose momentum by being released to early. I’m open to being proved ignorant here. Can you think of some examples where tech was obviously ahead of its time and not accepted? Subscription music services like…

> Can you think of some examples where tech was obviously ahead of its time and not accepted? Uh yeah, VR itself as a concept and models of VR have been live since the 80s but were especially hyped in the 90s but never went anywhere beyond amusement parks and arcades. And no one wanted to touch VR in the 00s despite huge leaps in processing power. I would even argue the original Macintosh was ahead of its time, maybe…

>I would even argue the original Macintosh was ahead of its time

You can argue about the Mac but certainly the Lisa was. Early laptops like the Data General/One as well (although in that case there business issues as well).

As for streaming music, to go mainstream it probably needed cheap enough and fast enough cellular service. Of course, ripped, purchased, and umm acquired local copies of music also had a place once cheap enough portable devices with sufficient storage were available.