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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#591

Post by civilized »

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…

You could be right about all of this, but it isn't very compelling without more concrete detail.

From the perspective of a neutral observer, what we're getting here is one anonymous person's interpretation of Carmack's behavior, and we don't know anything about this person. So for all we know, it's equally possible that this person is arrogant and narcissistic and takes disagreement as bullying.

Not saying I actually believe this of you, but there are plenty of such people in the tech industry. So I don't know what to think here.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#592

Post by ThinkBeat »

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…

Everyone fails.

Carmack has also had a lot of wins. His accomplishments stand on their own.

Perhaps he is not a good people person.

He puts in an astonishing amount of effort on his pursuits or at least he used to. He may expect the same of others, not understanding that the majority of people have different lives and goals.

He might also just be an asshole.

It will be interesting to see what he does next. I think he still has one or two wins left in him.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#593

Post by justin66 »

comfypotato wrote: post #516
iforgotpassword wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah well, you're anonymous, so you might as well be someone with a huge ego who got their idea shut down by Carmack once and is still bitter about it. More often than not, when people think they "prove something wrong with data" it's more that they're "taking some data and interpret in a way that fits their standpoint". Carmack has proven enough times in the past that he's able to deliver, that he can push technolog…

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…

> 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?

Is this a joke?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#594

Post by wpietri »

criddell wrote: post #524
uplifter wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's another sign to me that VR is once again not going anywhere Maybe it's just a sign of how hot AI is right now.

I think the truth is that VR is there. They've sold lots of headsets and people who love it, really love it. Expecting it to sell at iPhone levels was never going to happen.

So by "there" you mean that the tech is good enough to provide a good experience, and so they've basically plateaued? That's my guess too. I rented a Quest for a couple of weeks and it was pretty neat. It just didn't fill any needs we actually had. I was thinking of it as a try-before-I-buy situation, but when I sent it back at the end of the two weeks, nobody cared. The kids were already back on their Switches and the Playstation for gaming.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#596

Post by [deleted] »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #352
adamsb6 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined back in 2014 and left this year. I feel like I got to enjoy a couple of years before the company started to lose its nimbleness. Feedback groups used to get responses from the people that actually built the things instead of contractors whose primary function is feedback group triage. Sometimes you could actually have an impact by giving feedback, and you could see others having those impacts as well. When I…

>I think Portal is a perfect example of how slow to adapt the company has become. It's a fantastic video conferencing device, certainly the best at its price point. We happened to enter the pandemic with this device already available for sale, but we completely failed to capitalize on it. Thanks for your insight, but the Portal failure shouldn't be surprising. There are a large number of people who would never want t…

[deleted]

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#597

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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.

I'd be very careful about making that assertion when you're only hearing one side of the story. There is a good quote from the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey about why she never takes sides in a broken marriage: "Because however much the couple may strive to be honest, no one is ever in possession of the facts."

I strongly think that applies here.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#598

Post by c3534l »

hajile wrote: post #29
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…

I suspect he's going to get smacked hard by the AGI problem and ultimately concede defeat on his biggest goal while achieving some success in the current less-than-general ML stuff.

Honestly seems like a better fit for him than VR. VR may be games, but everyone is saying his strengths are technical, not organizational. Seems like he wants to work on hard technical problems and thats what he's good at.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#599

Post by whimsicalism »

bsenftner wrote: post #517
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…

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 developers in my experience are very clear communicators, and PMs & managers tend to be poor communicators or at least communicators who have goals very disaligned from that of the company.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#600

Post by patrick451 »

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote: post #265
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…

Ironically I felt reassured reading this. "[...] I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after [...] evidence piles up" especially resonates with me. While I rationally understand it's just corporate bureaucracy / politics, sometimes I still wonder if I were just a bit more capable I'd be more persuasive. If John fucking Carmack cannot move the bureau…

What makes you think Carmack is especially persuasive? Often, those with the best technical chops are the least persuasive and it seems misguided to think that the reason you can't persuade is because you are lacking technically.
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