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Yeah, Carmack has a history of unethical behavior. From the book "Masters of Doom": > Late one night Carmack and his friends snuck up to a nearby school where
by panic 9y ago
Yeah, Carmack has a history of unethical behavior. From the book "Masters of Doom":
> Late one night Carmack and his friends snuck up to a nearby school where they knew there were Apple II machines. Carmack had read about how a thermite paste could be used to melt through glass, but he needed some kind of adhesive material, like Vaseline. He mixed the concoction and applied it to the window, dissolving the glass so they could pop out holes to crawl through. A fat friend, however, had more than a little trouble squeezing inside; he reached through the hole instead and opened the window to let himself in. Doing so, he triggered the silent alarm. The cops came in no time.
> The fourteen-year-old Carmack was sent for psychiatric evaluation to help determine his sentence. He came into the room with a sizable chip on his shoulder. The interview didn’t go well. Carmack was later told the contents of his evaluation: “Boy behaves like a walking brain with legs ... no empathy for other human beings.” At one point the man twiddled his pencil and asked Carmack, “If you hadn’t been caught, do you think you would have done something like this again?”
> “If I hadn’t been caught,” Carmack replied honestly, “yes, I probably would have done that again.”
> Later he ran into the psychiatrist, who told him, “You know, it’s not very smart to tell someone you’re going to go do a crime again.”
> “I said, ‘if I hadn’t been caught,’ goddamn it!” Carmack replied. He was sentenced to one year in a small juvenile detention home in town. Most of the kids were in for drugs. Carmack was in for an Apple II.
- mgkimsal 9y agowell... damnit, it is frustrating when people ask you something then infer something different from a question they think they asked, vs what they asked! :/
- bitwize 9y agoCarmack: Breaks into a building at age 14, steals a bit of code today. "Oh, he has a history of unethical behavior, we shouldn't look up to him." Bill Gates: Steals a bulldozer to race with his buddies at age 19(?), is responsible for Microsoft's corporate culture and history of predatory behavior. Hackernews loves him and can't get enough of Microsoft. Boy, they're a fair sight better than Google, eh lads? I pity the person who learns ethics from Hackernews.
- sokoloff 9y agoI haven't experienced a consistent love fest here for Bill Gates. There are supporters and detractors, just as you'd expect for any public figure. Perhaps you notice more those opinions with which you disagree.
- chooseaname 9y agoBill Gates has more money and prestige. This is HN where the predominate idea is to start a new business and become the new Bill Gates.
- mattmanser 9y agoIn the early years of HN people still used M$ and other microsoft slurs. The feelings have soften in recent years, way after Bill Gates had left. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=M$&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=M$&sort=byPopularity&prefix&pa...
- balls187 9y agoDoing something stupid at Age 14 constitutes a history of unethical behavior?