4 ms·

Several of the anecdotes are about not doing what Jobs wanted him to. Zuck doesn't hold a candle to Jobs' force of personality. I don't know if Carmack has FU m

Several of the anecdotes are about not doing what Jobs wanted him to. Zuck doesn't hold a candle to Jobs' force of personality. I don't know if Carmack has FU money, but if he decides to part with Facebook, he'll have three job offers before he's out of the building. The only plausible explanation is that Carmack writes on Facebook out of his own free will.

mpweiher 8y ago
> I don't know if Carmack has FU money He most definitely has. Heck, spent some of that on founding a rocket company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace
- mseebach 8y ago
  I have a vague recollection that he lost his shirt at some point, possibly building rockets. Possibly there was something in Masters of Doom[1]? I don't have it near me, so can't check. 1: Biography of id software, obviously heavily featuring Carmack. Highly recommended.
- gnode 8y ago
  I'm not sure that's evidence that he still has that kind of wealth. To quote Elon Musk: "If you want to make a small fortune in the launch vehicle business, start with a large one." Armadillo Aerospace went into "hibernation" in 2013 and sold off its assets.
  - seanp2k2 8y ago
    FWIW that phrase has been around for a long time. It’s fairly common in the aviation industry, but it’s used in others as well: https://ask.metafilter.com/91579/Who-came-up-with-this-joke https://ask.metafilter.com/91579/Who-came-up-with-this-joke
  - adventured 8y ago
    Three strong counter points to that. 1) id Software sold to Zenimax for $150 million. [1] John Carmack was a large shareholder at the time and claimed a year ago that Zenimax still owes him another $22.5 million. Adrian Carmack owned 41% of id when he was fired & bought out of the company in 2005. From that ownership consolidation, it's very likely John had 1/3 or more of the company when it was sold to Zenimax. 2) Oculus was purchased for $2 billion. $400m in cash and 23 million shares of Facebook. Those shares would now be worth $4.2 billion. Carmack owned a position in Oculus pre the Andreessen Horowitz investment. A 1% stake would have been a substantial windfall. 3) He earned a large amount of money from being an owner of id Software from the Wolfenstein days forward. According to Wired, he put $8m into Armadillo before closing it down. The id sale alone covers that cost at least twice over after taxes. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/john-carmack-zenimax-owes-me-22-5m-as-part-of-2009-id-software-deal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/john-carmack-zen...
- craigsmansion 8y ago
  From the 2013 Quakecon keynote (The somewhat famous "Carmack uses Haskell" one): "The rocketry has always been a negotiation with my wife, understandably so, where. She has always insisted I not be one of those celebrities that squanders all of their fortune being high on the hill and then being penniless some day, so, rocketry has always had this carved out area, where, "this is John's crazy money" while "All of this is to make sure the family is well taken care of and John's not going to be begging for work some time." But I basically expended my crazy money on Armadillo. So I don't expect to see any rockets in the real near future."
gameswithgo 8y ago
One of Carmack's driving visions is creating the metaverase. VR and huge scale computing networks are part of that, and Facebook has some expertise as both. This is not me inferring Carmack's wish to work there are much as it is just assembling things he has tweeted in the past.
estebank 8y ago
> I don't know if Carmack has FU money He famously bought a Ferrari and turbocharged it[1]. He doesn't _need_ to work for a living, he's doing what he wants to do. [1]: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/transportation/advanced-cars/hacking-a-ferrari https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/transportation/advanced-...

mpweiher 8y ago

> I don't know if Carmack has FU money He most definitely has. Heck, spent some of that on founding a rocket company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace

mseebach 8y ago
I have a vague recollection that he lost his shirt at some point, possibly building rockets. Possibly there was something in Masters of Doom[1]? I don't have it near me, so can't check. 1: Biography of id software, obviously heavily featuring Carmack. Highly recommended.
gnode 8y ago
I'm not sure that's evidence that he still has that kind of wealth. To quote Elon Musk: "If you want to make a small fortune in the launch vehicle business, start with a large one." Armadillo Aerospace went into "hibernation" in 2013 and sold off its assets.
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  FWIW that phrase has been around for a long time. It’s fairly common in the aviation industry, but it’s used in others as well: https://ask.metafilter.com/91579/Who-came-up-with-this-joke https://ask.metafilter.com/91579/Who-came-up-with-this-joke
- adventured 8y ago
  Three strong counter points to that. 1) id Software sold to Zenimax for $150 million. [1] John Carmack was a large shareholder at the time and claimed a year ago that Zenimax still owes him another $22.5 million. Adrian Carmack owned 41% of id when he was fired & bought out of the company in 2005. From that ownership consolidation, it's very likely John had 1/3 or more of the company when it was sold to Zenimax. 2) Oculus was purchased for $2 billion. $400m in cash and 23 million shares of Facebook. Those shares would now be worth $4.2 billion. Carmack owned a position in Oculus pre the Andreessen Horowitz investment. A 1% stake would have been a substantial windfall. 3) He earned a large amount of money from being an owner of id Software from the Wolfenstein days forward. According to Wired, he put $8m into Armadillo before closing it down. The id sale alone covers that cost at least twice over after taxes. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/john-carmack-zenimax-owes-me-22-5m-as-part-of-2009-id-software-deal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/john-carmack-zen...
craigsmansion 8y ago
From the 2013 Quakecon keynote (The somewhat famous "Carmack uses Haskell" one): "The rocketry has always been a negotiation with my wife, understandably so, where. She has always insisted I not be one of those celebrities that squanders all of their fortune being high on the hill and then being penniless some day, so, rocketry has always had this carved out area, where, "this is John's crazy money" while "All of this is to make sure the family is well taken care of and John's not going to be begging for work some time." But I basically expended my crazy money on Armadillo. So I don't expect to see any rockets in the real near future."

gameswithgo 8y ago

One of Carmack's driving visions is creating the metaverase. VR and huge scale computing networks are part of that, and Facebook has some expertise as both. This is not me inferring Carmack's wish to work there are much as it is just assembling things he has tweeted in the past.

estebank 8y ago

> I don't know if Carmack has FU money He famously bought a Ferrari and turbocharged it[1]. He doesn't _need_ to work for a living, he's doing what he wants to do. [1]: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/transportation/advanced-cars/hacking-a-ferrari https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/transportation/advanced-...