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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#511

Post by JW_00000 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #330
xyzelement wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to write about this topic in more depth, but in a nutshell I found that the more innovative and valuable your idea is, the harder it is to sell (because it's very value comes from the fact that it's a distance from bow people are thinking today) People are busy and attention is scarce so knowing how to genuinely push and sell your idea in such environments is a rare ability and one that needs curation. You'll…

You also have to be ruthless as required and not take no for an answer. Sometimes you have to run people over and leave the bodies in the ditch to get stuff done.

And two years later, your idea fails and your boss says:

> 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.

So serious point: if everyone is ruthless and tries to push their own ideas through, how can a manager know who is right and which direction to follow?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#512

Post by tinus_hn »

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…

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.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#513

Post by threatripper »

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…

This is an interesting comment. In my experience most people were right in their way of thinking. Even if they come to vastly different conclusions, most of the time they are kind-of-right. This continues until objective reality hits as in "can we ship" and "does it make money". And even then it depends on many factors with many people involved. For a vision like VR this is far into the uncertain future and "being right" can mean many different things to people. Data doesn't help much if it is biased, if the analysis is biased or if you just have different definitions and priorities.

At the end of the day the real struggle is achieving alignment on business goals and priorities across the whole team. And also aligning them with reality. This is usually where you elect one leader to define those things and the others to follow those definitions.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#514

Post by mjfl »

chimprich wrote: post #507
wpietri wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting to me that he's giving up on VR entirely. If he thought it was just an issue with Facebook, presumably he'd jump in somewhere else and get the impact he was looking to have. That's another sign to me that VR is once again not going anywhere. Or rather, half of it isn't. Oculus-style VR is two best in one: 3D persistent virtual worlds and stereoscopic facehugger interfaces. The former has had gre…

> That's another sign to me that VR is once again not going anywhere That's not Carmack's opinion. To quote from his post: "Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place." "the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world" The m…

The main problem with VR is that it is a gimmick that people don't want to use as their main medium of interaction whether with games or job communication.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#516

Post by comfypotato »

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…

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 Rhapsody provided what Apple Music does now 15 years ago, and they died out (similarly Microsoft’s Zune service). Maybe this is what you’re saying? - All the same, I would trump these examples up to poor marketing, management, and product specifics. Apple Music isn’t releasing their service at a better time. They just put a lot more effort into it, and it provides the service better. (Their phone ecosystem plays a big part in this.) This example could be extended into saying that the Go just wasn’t good enough (thus: Carmack failed).

FWIW: I’m a Carmack fan, and I base a lot of how I use Emacs on his wisdom accumulated over the years. For example, his recent shift to VSCode has inspired me to think in that direction.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#517

Post by bsenftner »

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…

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 communicators, and it is hurting all of our careers.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#518

Post by Kuinox »

tgv wrote: post #450
ww520 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He believes that AGI is an engineering problem because of the vast compute resource required for it. Being an engineering problem he believes he can make an impact.

That would be utterly wrong.

GPT-3 happened and showed that by throwing more computation at the problem you have better results.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#519

Post by surfsvammel »

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…

Keen Technologies. That’s a great name.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#520

Post by tgv »

Kuinox wrote: post #518
tgv wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be utterly wrong.

GPT-3 happened and showed that by throwing more computation at the problem you have better results.

As one of my AI profs said: it's like trying to teach pigs to fly, and say you're progressing because you're building higher towers.
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