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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#961

Post by philwelch »

kqr wrote: post #940
philwelch wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

If you can’t effectively communicate the rationale and intention behind your decisions, you’re failing as a leader. A dictatorship doesn’t work without a competent dictator, just as a democracy doesn’t work without a competent demos.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#962

Post by freejazz »

bee_rider wrote: post #834
moralestapia wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>who got their idea shut down by Carmack once and is still bitter about it Nice fantasy you created there to support your argument. Have you heard of "don't shoot the messenger" ? I admire Carmack as much all other hackers around. I don't sympathize with many of Meta's practices. Still, it's entirely plausible that GP's experience holds truth. I've been around the equivalent of people like Carmack in academia and all…

The person’s whole story was entirely based around their anonymous word. The follow up comment reads to me like a narrative way of pointing they out. We don’t really know, I guess, what happened internally. But: * Carmack has tossed some grenades as he left, so if there’s a real story there I guess we’re likely to hear about it from some non-anonymous sources soon enough if he was a real pain. * He’s gone now, so we’…

They can just point out it's anonymous... that's the only logical connection. The rest is just as speculative.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#963

Post by joeyrideout »

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…

One of my favourite board games is called Burn Rate. The premise is a parody of silicon valley during the boom. You compete with the other players for talent (each employee is a card, with varying skill levels).

You could slow down other players by attacking them with “bad idea” cards that would tie up one or more of their engineers for an amount of time. To defend against bad ideas, you need a good manager (one type of employee card).

I could be misremembering some of the details, but the wisdom of the above game mechanic has stuck with me :)

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#964

Post by beambot »

percentcer wrote: post #746
beambot wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel sorry for those FAANG engineers... Imagine that you're paid 2-3x, the work is confined to 9-5, gourmet meals on the 2x days you're not wfh, generous vacation policy, world-class benefits, and ample time to pursue side hobbies or family. I know so many exceptional engineers that went this route... after they got over the perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and wild ambitions to just accept the status quo. Now,…

> the work is confined to 9-5 tell me you haven't worked in FAANG without telling me you haven't worked in FAANG

Ironically, I did work at FAANG. I was a delusional youngster who was a perfectionist & workaholic like many of my peers.

The people I'm referencing who stuck around: they're now in their late-30s and early-40s. They eventually shunned ladder climbing and realized that their L6 positions could ultimately be sustained with much less grind while steadily maintaining "meets expectations" on perf.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#965

Post by namuol »

nonethewiser wrote: post #938
namuol wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah that’s an important distinction! Iirc, the essay distinguishes between singular visionary vs decision-maker roles. A decision maker is there to break ties and contain bike shedding, and you pretty much always need one, whereas a singular visionary is really there to steer high level design decisions cohesively. There’s a spectrum here of course.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#966

Post by salawat »

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 proven enough times in the past that he's able to deliver, that he can push technology, knows what's possible and what isn't, and can wrap up a product.

In the finance world, lesson number 1 is past performance is not a predictor of future results.

I don't care how much of a virtuoso you are, if you clash with culture, you're fucked. I'm just coming out of a similar stint where the best I could do was hold off a predilection toward toxic culture norms long enough for processes to materialize. To support the business in spite of it.

So I know exactly the kind of forces he was probably working against. It's rather thankless, draining, and exhausting in a way sleep doesn't help with.

It's often bidirectional as well, so there's a trick to figuring out when it's time to bounce.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#967

Post by nullc »

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…

> and in some cases legally required, work

Are we talking EMI compliance or surveillance backdoors? :)

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#968

Post by joanfihu »

This feels particularly relatable as my company has also been acquired. I now know how it feels to work at a large company for the first time.

I've always thought Big Techs where the best to build innovative products because they had resources. It's the opposite due to politics and bureaucracy.

Big Tech gets away because of existing products that were made when the company was nimble. Plus some products are capital intensive like Apple Watch or AI research.

The best organisational setup to make great products are startups. Politics tend to be minimal in early days. If the company is rapidly growing, there is no time for politics.

I think it was Erik Schmidt who said that when a company stops to grow, politics and bureaucracy settles in.

That's probably what's happening at Big Tech.

Ad-powered businesses can project growth by simply adding more ad placements in their products.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#969

Post by joveian »

1123581321 wrote: post #903
joveian wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if John Romero vouches for him... rolls eyes https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3nxd3/how-kindness-saved-th...

Their point was that it means something when someone who was badly hurt still praises the person who did it. (“Did it” is shorthand for the full story.)

From the Dallas Observer article quoted by story I linked to (Jan 1999):

"Throughout it all, ION Storm has been hemorrhaging employees; of the approximately 85 people ION employed a year ago, more than half have quit or been let go. Finally, six weeks ago, virtually the entire team working on Daikatana jumped ship and joined Wilson's company."

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/stormy-weather-6427649?s...

To think that John Romero has the slightest bit of credibility as a character witness when it comes to such issues is so far from reality it is almost funny.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#970

Post by GuB-42 »

SideQuark wrote: post #943
beowulfey wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Read the John Romero stuff. Even Carmack explains in the Lex Friedman interview how badly Carmack treated him. Carmack also presents enough in that interview to expect this take us quite likely correct. All from Carmacks own mouth.

This is... confusing.

Especially considering that there are two (unrelated) Carmacks: John and Adrian, both cofounders of id software. As for John Romero, he did a lot of "stuff".

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