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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#911

Post by cerved »

aswanson wrote: post #879
richliss wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with someone who was a bona fide development genius about 10 years ago and he was a CTO and co-founder at the time and considered himself to be able to input into any conversation with people who were domain experts in fields that he wasn't. I remember him overruling the Head of Design and enforcing Arial to be the typeface used for the corporate brand because it was the typeface was present on more computer…

It's hilarious the CTO was enforcing corporate logo aesthetics. Talk about nanomanagement. Sheesh.

also, Arial

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#912

Post by jojobas »

Two things made me raise my eyebrows about Carmack: the way he let Steve Jobs talk to him (even in his own memories, so perhaps it was even worse) and him joining Facebook in the first place.

I guess humility is even more virtuous than they say.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#913

Post by throwaway2037 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #547
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 know someone who built a solid business around using the Oculus Go to show off kitchen designs to prospective buyers. The fact that the Go was a cheap-ish stand-alone Android device was really valuable for them.

Can you share the business name? That sounds very interesting.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#914

Post by VoodooJuJu »

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's interesting to me that, even here where people pride themselves on their intellectual and rational superiority, we can still observe the primitive human tendency to appeal to authority; see the top throwaway comment [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34026253

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#915

Post by beowulfey »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #485
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…

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…

Carmack has been around a long time, and I’ve never heard a word about him that rings true to the PC. Anyone on here worked with him in the past?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#916

Post by DonHopkins »

tinus_hn wrote: post #512
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…

Even if the statement were true, it’s not like they hired some anonymous guy, they knew what they were getting. Don’t hire a passionate guy like that if you don’t want him to concern himself with your company.

It's Facebook's fault for hiring him for a figurehead to not listen to, instead of hiring him for what he is to shake things up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

Sometimes a smug frog like Facebook just needs a good poisonous stab in the back.

It's not like they should be shocked after hiring a guy who was famous for making a game about shooting Nazis.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#917

Post by shapefrog »

adamsb6 wrote: post #741
dev_tty01 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

As a recent insider, this is one of those things where the outside perception doesn't match the inside at all. Privacy is taken more seriously at Facebook than any other place I've ever worked. It's drilled into you from day one that we have systems in place to catch you accessing things you shouldn't and you will be immediately fired if you do. You can make mistakes that bring the entire site down and cost the compa…

> systems in place to catch you accessing things you shouldn't and you will be immediately fired if you do

Unless you are selling it to the highest bidder on behalf of the company, and that gets you an immediate promotion.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#918

Post by pvaldes »

andybak wrote: post #610
heather45879 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. For some values of "no one". VR has been hanging on quite nicely despite repeated reports of it's demise. The problem is that some industry people keep expecting it to be iPhone huge and it's never going to be iPhone huge. So - the truth is somewhere inbetween "no one" and "every one". Something above "niche" but below "mass market".

Virtual reality has been too abused. Is introduced typically a humorous home video when people is startled, hits some furniture with their fists or jumps over it, and unavoidably broke the very expensive TV in the wall.

Is shown as a room disaster, much more funny for the people watching the player than for the player itself.

And the people still wonder why people is not playing it in mass when you are mocking your own target? This is not how you sell a product.

Maybe stopping the "need for jumpscare to show how awesome is our game" would help. Dunno. Maybe just making the game aware of he surrounding would help (This big square is the limit, if the player walks next the frontier show a warning or made it take one step back).

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#919

Post by DonHopkins »

AYBABTME wrote: post #896
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…

His critique resonates with my expectations from large enterprises, and your perception also resonates from what I expect of large enterprises workers. So I'm guessing he's probably not wrong and your experience was probably an example of him hitting social/political roadblocks. In my arguably limited human sized experience, the vast majority of people at Meta-sized companies prefer the safety and comfort of things g…

Do you mean Meta-sized or Meta-stasized?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#920

Post by DonHopkins »

bee_rider wrote: post #837
richliss wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with someone who was a bona fide development genius about 10 years ago and he was a CTO and co-founder at the time and considered himself to be able to input into any conversation with people who were domain experts in fields that he wasn't. I remember him overruling the Head of Design and enforcing Arial to be the typeface used for the corporate brand because it was the typeface was present on more computer…

What’s wrong with Arial? I mean I know it is disliked by typography fans because it is a ripoff of the popular Helvetica. But like, moral concerns aside or whatever, as a slightly worse ripoff of a good and popular typeface, it is unsurprisingly fairly visually appealing… It seems like a reasonable product decision given that most people don’t care about typeface history.

I shipped a successful game that used Comic Sans! ;)
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