John Carmack resigns from his consulting position at Meta
Connect with the leaders of gaming and the online metaverse at GamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse 3 on February 1-2. Register here.
John Carmack, the programmer who brought us virtual reality products Doom, Quake and Oculus/Meta, has resigned as executive consultant for virtual reality at Meta.
In a message to employees, Carmack said, "It's the end of my decade in virtual reality. I have mixed feelings."
Carmack joined Oculus' virtual reality team in 2013, resigning from his position at Bethesda's id Software and switching from traditional games to virtual reality. He continued after Facebook acquired Oculus for $4 billion in 2014. In 2019, he left the role of CTO at Oculus for the role of consultant.
"Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the start: mobile hardware, upside-down tracking, optional PC streaming, 4K display (pretty), cost effective," he wrote. "Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still benefiting from it. We have a good product. It's a success, and successful products make the world a better place. Anything could have happened a little faster and going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to the right thing."
He said the problem was business efficiency. He said an organization that has known only inefficiency is "ill-prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt-tightening, but in reality it is the most personal pain to see a number 5% GPU usage in production. I'm offended by that. (In a Facebook post, Carmack said he was "too poetic here".
EventGamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse 3
Join the GamesBeat community online, February 1-2, to review the results and emerging trends within the metaverse.
register hereCarmack said, "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we're constantly sabotaging ourselves and wasting our efforts. There's no way to sugarcoat that; I think our organization works at half the efficiency that would make me happy. Some may scoff and claim we're doing just fine, but others will laugh and say, "Half? Ha! I'm at quarter efficiency!"
He said it was a fight for him, and even though he has a voice at the top level, he feels like he should have been able to get things done. He said he had "never been able to kill stupid things before they did damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it". He called it self-inflicted, as he never moved to Menlo Park where Meta is based. But he said h...
Connect with the leaders of gaming and the online metaverse at GamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse 3 on February 1-2. Register here.
John Carmack, the programmer who brought us virtual reality products Doom, Quake and Oculus/Meta, has resigned as executive consultant for virtual reality at Meta.
In a message to employees, Carmack said, "It's the end of my decade in virtual reality. I have mixed feelings."
Carmack joined Oculus' virtual reality team in 2013, resigning from his position at Bethesda's id Software and switching from traditional games to virtual reality. He continued after Facebook acquired Oculus for $4 billion in 2014. In 2019, he left the role of CTO at Oculus for the role of consultant.
"Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the start: mobile hardware, upside-down tracking, optional PC streaming, 4K display (pretty), cost effective," he wrote. "Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still benefiting from it. We have a good product. It's a success, and successful products make the world a better place. Anything could have happened a little faster and going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to the right thing."
He said the problem was business efficiency. He said an organization that has known only inefficiency is "ill-prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt-tightening, but in reality it is the most personal pain to see a number 5% GPU usage in production. I'm offended by that. (In a Facebook post, Carmack said he was "too poetic here".
EventGamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse 3
Join the GamesBeat community online, February 1-2, to review the results and emerging trends within the metaverse.
register hereCarmack said, "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we're constantly sabotaging ourselves and wasting our efforts. There's no way to sugarcoat that; I think our organization works at half the efficiency that would make me happy. Some may scoff and claim we're doing just fine, but others will laugh and say, "Half? Ha! I'm at quarter efficiency!"
He said it was a fight for him, and even though he has a voice at the top level, he feels like he should have been able to get things done. He said he had "never been able to kill stupid things before they did damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it". He called it self-inflicted, as he never moved to Menlo Park where Meta is based. But he said h...
What's Your Reaction?
