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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#931

Post by edem »

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…

Given the fact that this is a throwaway account your credibility on this matter is less then zero. In fact this sounds like as if your project was shut down by Carmack and now your ego is bruised.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#932

Post by kqr »

drewg123 wrote: post #634

"I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage" One of the most important things an organization can have is a "no man". A project that I was involved in when I worked at Google was completed on time primarily because we had a very senior (DE level) engineer tangentially involved in the project. He was near the end of his career, and he just didn't give a f* about politics. He'd sit in design…

This sounds familiar. It's usually when I've decided to resign in a few months because thing don't change that I start not giving a fuck and actually enacting change. I wonder how to break that cycle.

It might sound easy to "just don't give a fuck sooner" but it's exhausting. The constant uphill struggle is not something I want to live with.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#933

Post by grumbel »

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…

The Go was certainly not "ahead of it's time". It was a standalone version of the GearVR, which was released three years earlier. At the same time Oculus released the Go with 3DOF tracking, Google released the Lenovo Mirage Solo with 6DOF tracking.

That said, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Go. It was and still is, the cheapest entry point into VR. The lack of features made it much more lightweight and comfortable than its successors, which also cost double of the Go.

The only real problem with the Go is that Facebook didn't continue that line of product. There is plenty of room for a 3DOF/2D content focused headset, but Facebook never really cared about that area of VR.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#934

Post by codethief »

richliss wrote: post #534
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 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…

> Self doubt is a really really important trait to have as a leader

While I get the point you're making, I remember reading somewhere that successful people (in terms of their career) tend to exhibit less self-doubt.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#935

Post by kqr »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #675
troupe wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re supposed to lead without authority John seems to be particularly calling out that he was not able to influence the people with high enough rank to make decisions. So it sounds like he at least thought there was an authority structure there wasn't as flat as you describe.

Valve is a great example of how this doesn't work in practice. Jeri Ellsworth got fired and revealed that the supposedly flat hierarchy at Valve is really composed of informal cliques - with the most influential groups having a direct line to the CEO/ Kinda what happened to communism in Russia, if you think about it

This is an old observation: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I would argue it does work in practise, at least with a higher success rate than a formal authority hierarchy.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#936

Post by Patrol8394 »

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…

Steve Jobs once said: “ It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to to , We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#937

Post by nonethewiser »

bee_rider wrote: post #739
monero-xmr wrote: post #649

I’m a strong believer in dictatorship at companies. Every team has someone with ultimate decision making power, as does every project with a project leader, and above teams are leaders who have authority above them, and so on. Of course there are meetings and discussions but there is always someone with the authority to make a decision that everyone has to respect. Honestly it benefits everyone. ICs like that authori…

Phrases like “benevolent dictator for life” have become pretty widespread, and they are cute, but I think the slightly obscure the issue or focus on the wrong thing. A dictator can function with a small, powerful core of supporters (usually the military and then some key demographic or powerbrokers depending on the situation), and then keep the rest of the populace in their place through violence if necessary. I thin…

> Phrases like “benevolent dictator for life” have become pretty widespread

I dont think anyone said "for life" here. The thing about business "dictatorships" is that they are naturally temporary. These people will leave of their own accord or be fired if they're incompetent at some point. And if the very top doesn't fire these people, making themselves incompetent, then their business will struggle to sustain itself.

It's not like a dictatorial government which can rewrite laws and use military force.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#938

Post by nonethewiser »

namuol wrote: post #799
monero-xmr wrote: post #649

I’m a strong believer in dictatorship at companies. Every team has someone with ultimate decision making power, as does every project with a project leader, and above teams are leaders who have authority above them, and so on. Of course there are meetings and discussions but there is always someone with the authority to make a decision that everyone has to respect. Honestly it benefits everyone. ICs like that authori…

I’m blanking on the name of the essay, but there’s a compelling argument for the only viable alternative to a Benevolent Dictator being a very thoroughly and precisely defined shared terminology of the underlying product/software system. Basically you can achieve a shared vision only by relentlessly checking the assumptions of the group and codifying everything, or using a singular visionary as the stand-in for a coh…

But does "what is" really beget "what should be?" I'm sure what you describe would be very helpful but I don't see how it could eliminate disagreements on direction.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#939

Post by Eisenstein »

nickstinemates wrote: post #860
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? Webvan. 2000 era shopping as a service. Predates instacart, uber eats, etc. World wasn't ready for it.

Have the modern versions of those services made any money yet, though? They could just be bad business models which are being help up by VC money.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#940

Post by kqr »

philwelch wrote: post #725
edmundsauto wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trade off is decision cycle time. In a dictatorship, the dictator (and getting their attention) becomes a bottleneck.

A democratic or consensus-based approach to making decisions can be even slower though, which is when it’s handy to have a dictator.

When has the decision been made? When the dictator says "make it so" or when the software developers understand the rationale and are able to implement it successfully?

Because the time to the latter is sometimes infinite in the dictatorships I've been in.

(In contrast, when a decision is made democratically, most people are already on board with the implementation details and rationale.)

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