Legendary developer John Carmack has stepped down as an advisor to Meta, serving as executive advisor on Oculus virtual reality hardware.
Carmack joined Oculus as Chief Technology Officer in 2013 — a year earlier than that Facebook has acquired it – And the detail of his departure in a Facebook share Repeats and comments on an internal post sent to Meta staff.
The post has two themes, one of which is his belief that Meta is not in good shape.
“This is the end of my VR decade. I have mixed feelings,” famous death The developer post opens.
He is conflicted because he thinks the Quest 2 headset he worked on is a good product.
“Quest 2 is exactly what I wanted to see from the start – mobile hardware, indoor-outdoor tracking, optional PC streaming, 4K(ish) display, cost-effective,” he wrote. “We have a good product. It works, and successful products make the world a better place. Everything could have happened a little faster and worked out better if different decisions had been made, but we’ve built something very close to The Right Thing.”
He believes it would have been better if Meta had been a more efficient organization.
“We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources,” he wrote, “but continually sabotage ourselves and waste effort.” “There is no way to cover this up; I think our organization is working half as effectively as it would make me happy.”
He also thought, without specifically tying the idea to meta, that “an organization that only knows inefficiency is not prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt-tightening”.
Mita already has it It reduced its workforce by thirteen percent With the advertising market (and the Meta share price) declining due to unfavorable economic conditions.
Thus, Carmack’s observation that Meta is ineffective and bloated will not be well received by investors.
issues, so I knew it would be very frustrating to keep pushing my point internally. I am now involved in building AGI at Keen Technologies.
– John Carmack (ID_AA_Carmack) December 17, 2022
The second theme is that Carmack felt he could not sway.
“It was a struggle for me,” he wrote. “I have a voice on the highest levels here, so I feel like I should be able to move things along, but I’m clearly not convincing enough.”
“A good portion of the things I complain about eventually get my way after a year or two and the evidence builds up, but I’ve never been able to kill the stupid stuff before it causes damage, or set a direction and you actually have a team to it.
“I think my influence on the sidelines has been positive, but it’s never been a major driver.”
He wrote that some of these issues were self-inflicted. “I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to pick fights with generations of leadership, but I was so busy programming, I assumed I’d hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.”
This is a story log He’s heard a lot from technologists whose roles involve interacting with management.
He signed with qualified Meta acclaim.
“Virtual reality can bring value to most people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do so than Meta. It may already be possible to achieve this by moving forward with current practices, but there is a lot of room for improvement.”
Carmack will now focus on Keen Technologies, his startup that wants to build artificial general intelligence.
Originally posted 2022-12-19 13:45:39.