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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#861

Post by runarberg »

gompertz wrote: post #620
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…

Quoted post unavailable.

> specially anyone who doesn't know the difference between 'their' and 'there'

This is a really ablest take and should not really be seen here on HN. You have no idea what kind of an input device the author is using, if they have some handicap or disability nor even what their native language is. There are plenty of reasons a poster can make this mistake, and even more reasons to make it consistently. Please do better.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#862

Post by swellguy »

This is kind of a weirdly dramatic departure, as this was a union and a product that never made any sense on a napkin or the back of an envelope. Sigh. Hope to see him back on track and doing some cool stuff in the future.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#863

Post by kronks »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #854
gompertz wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What a fatuous argument. Have you considered that they may have used speech to text to dictate there (sic.) response from a mobile device, or that perhaps their (sic.) not a native speaker? I find that the people who are overly concerned about semantics tend to be the people who have the least to offer in terms of substance. The idea that you can draw a correlation between one's technological aptitude and the inabili…

No post body was provided.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#864

Post by wyclif »

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 suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I have trouble believing that someone in your position would mistake "above" for "among" and not know the difference between "their" and "there." Surely a company like Meta has higher standards for written English.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#865

Post by bagels »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #782

From his complaints, I can deduce one of two things: 1. Carmack isn't a good leader. It takes a lot of "soft skills" to lead a large organization, and while Carmack has proven to be an unpaired engineer throughout his career, I haven't seen him build outstanding engineering organizations . and/or 2. Carmack was fighting for influence with others at Meta VR, and couldn't get his goals take priority over others (Zucker…

I wasn't in reality labs, but all the posts from carmack over the years that I could see really really pointed at him experiencing both problems. Not only that, but people publicly both agreeing with his concerns, but also questioning why he was complaining about it instead of navigating the FB politics to lead the change.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#867

Post by pengaru »

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…

> When I hear people say "If only Meta would let Carmack do what he wants we'd see his ideal VR experience and it would be amazing". You already saw it. It was Oculus Go, and by every metric is was a commercial, financial, and technical, disaster.

Hasn't Carmack always been pretty clear about wanting Meta to deliver an ultra-low-cost high-volume headset prioritizing getting them in as many hands as possible? Did Oculus Go deliver this? Because Carmack has seemed to be constantly complaining about this with every germane talk he's given to date...

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#869

Post by svieira »

fknorangesite wrote: post #688
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.

> authority structure there wasn't as flat as you describe. It never is. In the absence of formal authority, people will unconsciously build an ad hoc structure on their own.

See also: The Tyranny of Structurelessness https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#870

Post by fsdjkflsjfsoij »

ericmcer wrote: post #658
leeoniya wrote: post #625

> [edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization's performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.] as someone who spends a lot of time…

I think the 5% was a metaphor for how the org is barely able to utilize its resources. Also wouldn't React JS/TS be an instance where you are fully utilizing resources? Not from a raw machine performance standpoint, but from a developer efficiency standpoint. Using nested for loops instead of a series of JS array functions is way more efficient but it is not even close to worth it. Machines are so powerful these days…

> but it is not even close to worth it

It's often extremely worth it. Most people don't profile though and don't care that their web apps are horrendously inefficient at almost every level.

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