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> Carmack could build a video games which is 100x across a number of metrics But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. Sometimes being 10x is o

> Carmack could build a video games which is 100x across a number of metrics But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. Sometimes being 10x is only a matter of being free to help the best you can. EDIT: where Carmack shows that he is well above average is not in coding, but in being extremely pragmatic and thous being able to extract good, almost unbiased, information out of every discussion, even the more unpleseant ones. --- Part of his method, at least with me, was to deride contemporary options and dare me to tell him differently. They might be pragmatic, but couldn't actually be good. "I have Pixar. We will make something [an API] that is actually good." It was often frustrating, because he could talk, with complete confidence, about things he was just plain wrong about, like the price of memory for video cards and the amount of system bandwidth exploitable by the AltiVec extensions. People were backing away from us. If Steve was mad, Apple employees didn't want him to associate the sight of them with the experience. Afterwards, one of the execs assured me that "Steve appreciates vigorous conversation". Still deeply disappointed about it, I made some comments that got picked up by the press. Steve didn't appreciate that. The Steve Jobs "hero / sh*head" rollercoaster was real, and after riding high for a long time, I was now on the down side. Someone told me that Steve explicitly instructed them to not give me access to the early iPhone SDK when it finally was ready.

msla 5y ago
> But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. I honestly don't understand how this is relevant. Carmack is 10x in coding and designing software. Jobs was 10x in PR and persuasion.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  The point is he wasn't when he worked with Jobs. Carmack is exceptional, not just 10x, but how many above average people work with a Steve Jobs and can't prove it and do not even realize it? Carmack is not an actual good benchmark here, but even as good as he is, he met his kryptonite Don't assume that great workers will perform great in every condition, because that's not a realistic assumption and only puts pressure on younger people for no reason. We must not support the idea that if you're not Carmack you can't be worth (at doing your job. *only *) more than the others or the company's average.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    "worked with Jobs" What are you talking about, John Carmack never worked directly with Steve Jobs? He had his own company and he sometimes had to talk with Apple as a platform vendor, but they never worked together on a title. He didn't like Jobs as a person but that is another story.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      Carmack literally talks about working WITH Jobs, but random HN user says he didn't. OK!
      - Jensson 5y ago
        John Carmack ran a video game company. Steve Jobs ran a platform, the Apple. Therefore John Carmack sometimes talked to Steve Jobs about things he needed from the Apple platform. John Carmack had a very negative experience in those interactions, yes. But John Carmack never worked with Steve Jobs on any project. Steve Jobs was never the boss of John Carmack. If you disagree please link an article where it says that they did work together on anything and that during that project John Carmack's performance was significantly reduced. I haven't found such an article, and it would be strange since they never worked at the same company. That he did a few keynotes at Apple isn't really working together. And him refusing to take a keynote that would force him to reschedule his wedding is just him being healthy and Steve Jobs being an ass, I'd say that is evidence that Steve Jobs didn't really have any power over him.
        peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        > If you disagree please link an article where it says that they did work together It would have sufficed to read the Carmack post. Seriously, random internet guy, he literally *said it himself* > When NeXT managed to sort of reverse-acquire Apple and Steve was back in charge, I was excited by the possibilities of a resurgent Apple with the virtues of NeXT in a mainstream platform. *I was brought in* to talk about the needs of games in general, but I made it my mission to get Apple to adopt OpenGL as their 3D graphics API. I had a lot of arguments with Steve. > I wound up doing *several keynotes with Steve* (see the word WITH?), and it was always a crazy fire drill with not enough time to do things right, and generally requiring heroic effort from many people to make it happen at all. I tend to think this was also a calculated part of his method. -- John Carmack I've specifically said WITH not FOR. Please random guy, read before speaking.
908B64B197 5y ago
> But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. Not sure that's a bug. Seems no matter what Jobs thought, Carmack kept bringing value and shipping great software.

msla 5y ago

> But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. I honestly don't understand how this is relevant. Carmack is 10x in coding and designing software. Jobs was 10x in PR and persuasion.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
The point is he wasn't when he worked with Jobs. Carmack is exceptional, not just 10x, but how many above average people work with a Steve Jobs and can't prove it and do not even realize it? Carmack is not an actual good benchmark here, but even as good as he is, he met his kryptonite Don't assume that great workers will perform great in every condition, because that's not a realistic assumption and only puts pressure on younger people for no reason. We must not support the idea that if you're not Carmack you can't be worth (at doing your job. *only *) more than the others or the company's average.
- Jensson 5y ago
  "worked with Jobs" What are you talking about, John Carmack never worked directly with Steve Jobs? He had his own company and he sometimes had to talk with Apple as a platform vendor, but they never worked together on a title. He didn't like Jobs as a person but that is another story.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    Carmack literally talks about working WITH Jobs, but random HN user says he didn't. OK!
    - Jensson 5y ago
      John Carmack ran a video game company. Steve Jobs ran a platform, the Apple. Therefore John Carmack sometimes talked to Steve Jobs about things he needed from the Apple platform. John Carmack had a very negative experience in those interactions, yes. But John Carmack never worked with Steve Jobs on any project. Steve Jobs was never the boss of John Carmack. If you disagree please link an article where it says that they did work together on anything and that during that project John Carmack's performance was significantly reduced. I haven't found such an article, and it would be strange since they never worked at the same company. That he did a few keynotes at Apple isn't really working together. And him refusing to take a keynote that would force him to reschedule his wedding is just him being healthy and Steve Jobs being an ass, I'd say that is evidence that Steve Jobs didn't really have any power over him.
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        > If you disagree please link an article where it says that they did work together It would have sufficed to read the Carmack post. Seriously, random internet guy, he literally *said it himself* > When NeXT managed to sort of reverse-acquire Apple and Steve was back in charge, I was excited by the possibilities of a resurgent Apple with the virtues of NeXT in a mainstream platform. *I was brought in* to talk about the needs of games in general, but I made it my mission to get Apple to adopt OpenGL as their 3D graphics API. I had a lot of arguments with Steve. > I wound up doing *several keynotes with Steve* (see the word WITH?), and it was always a crazy fire drill with not enough time to do things right, and generally requiring heroic effort from many people to make it happen at all. I tend to think this was also a calculated part of his method. -- John Carmack I've specifically said WITH not FOR. Please random guy, read before speaking.

908B64B197 5y ago

> But even Carmack couldn't crack Steve Jobs stubbornness. Not sure that's a bug. Seems no matter what Jobs thought, Carmack kept bringing value and shipping great software.