Once a true VR believer, a 'tired' John Carmack leaves Meta
Once a true VR believer, a 'tired' John Carmack leaves Meta
Enlarge / Artist's conception of Carmack's VR avatar saying goodbye to Meta.
After nearly a decade, John Carmack's time guiding VR hardware efforts at Meta (and at Facebook/Oculus before that) has come to an end. The id Software co-founder and Doom co-creator officially left Meta Friday night, according to an internal company memo obtained by Insider and confirmed by The New York Times.
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Carmack's departure post serves as a scathing indictment for Meta's crippling inefficiency which he said he was "offended" by and compared to a GPU with a utilization rate miserable 5%. "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we are constantly self-sabotaging and wasting our efforts. There is no way to sugarcoat this," he wrote. "I think our organization is operating at half the efficiency that would make me happy."
More personally, Carmack complained that it has been a "struggle" for him to influence the general direction of Meta and that he is "fighting tired". Despite his high-ranking title of "consulting CTO/executive advisor", Carmack complained that he was "definitely not persuasive enough" to improve Meta's VR efforts.
If this kind of talk sounds familiar, it might be because Carmack voiced similar complaints in his October Meta Connect talk. There he talked about his internal efforts to push for the development of a "super cheap and super light" Meta VR headset that could cost "$250 and 250 grams". Instead, Meta has put its recent VR hardware efforts behind the heavily over-engineered, $1,500 Quest Pro. "We're not building this [cheap, lightweight] helmet today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation during the keynote.
In his parting post, Carmack had kind words for the best-selling Meta Quest 2 headset, which he called a good, successful product that has "[made] the world a better place." In his October keynote, however, Carmack also bluntly told Meta that "Quest's core usability really needs to improve" and that "our app startup times are slow, our transitions are glitchy. We need to make it a whole lot better...much, much faster to integrate."
Enlarge / Oculus CTO John Carmack couldn't walk down the hallway of the Oculus Connect 2016 conference without being mobbed by onlookers. He was happy to hold the court for long impromptu question-and-answer sessions.
At the end of 2021, Carmack also had some words of warning as Facebook changed its name...
Enlarge / Artist's conception of Carmack's VR avatar saying goodbye to Meta.
After nearly a decade, John Carmack's time guiding VR hardware efforts at Meta (and at Facebook/Oculus before that) has come to an end. The id Software co-founder and Doom co-creator officially left Meta Friday night, according to an internal company memo obtained by Insider and confirmed by The New York Times.
>
Carmack's departure post serves as a scathing indictment for Meta's crippling inefficiency which he said he was "offended" by and compared to a GPU with a utilization rate miserable 5%. "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we are constantly self-sabotaging and wasting our efforts. There is no way to sugarcoat this," he wrote. "I think our organization is operating at half the efficiency that would make me happy."
More personally, Carmack complained that it has been a "struggle" for him to influence the general direction of Meta and that he is "fighting tired". Despite his high-ranking title of "consulting CTO/executive advisor", Carmack complained that he was "definitely not persuasive enough" to improve Meta's VR efforts.
If this kind of talk sounds familiar, it might be because Carmack voiced similar complaints in his October Meta Connect talk. There he talked about his internal efforts to push for the development of a "super cheap and super light" Meta VR headset that could cost "$250 and 250 grams". Instead, Meta has put its recent VR hardware efforts behind the heavily over-engineered, $1,500 Quest Pro. "We're not building this [cheap, lightweight] helmet today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation during the keynote.
In his parting post, Carmack had kind words for the best-selling Meta Quest 2 headset, which he called a good, successful product that has "[made] the world a better place." In his October keynote, however, Carmack also bluntly told Meta that "Quest's core usability really needs to improve" and that "our app startup times are slow, our transitions are glitchy. We need to make it a whole lot better...much, much faster to integrate."
Enlarge / Oculus CTO John Carmack couldn't walk down the hallway of the Oculus Connect 2016 conference without being mobbed by onlookers. He was happy to hold the court for long impromptu question-and-answer sessions.
At the end of 2021, Carmack also had some words of warning as Facebook changed its name...
Enlarge / Artist's conception of Carmack's VR avatar saying goodbye to Meta.
Enlarge / Oculus CTO John Carmack couldn't walk down the hallway of the Oculus Connect 2016 conference without being mobbed by onlookers. He was happy to hold the court for long impromptu question-and-answer sessions.
