8 ms·

Is Carmack still working on Oculus?

by azth 5y ago

s5300 5y ago
He was as of a month ago, and it doesn't appear that anything has changed since. I have lost a lot of respect for Carmack with how nonchalant he's been towards working with somebody as dubious as Zuckerberg
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
  You would too, for a salary in the 8 figures.
  - 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
    I don't think Carmack would run into any problems finding other 8 figures jobs, and he has been rich for a long time now anyway. Also what is it with this idea of "everyone will throw morals into the trash to work at X", it's simply not true, some people DO indeed posess ideals and the integrity to go with them.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Someone like Carmack could make 8 figures doing their own thing.
    - sydthrowaway 5y ago
      True. He was probably making 8 figures under ZeniMax
      - bitwize 5y ago
        Actually, he sued ZeniMax over them not paying him the eight-figure sum he sold his stake in his company for.
    - kobalsky 5y ago
      doing your own thing can be a chore that keeps you very far from doing the fun stuff, especially if you love R&D. when you least expect it you will be in a meeting about business management crap, it's very hard to keep that at bay. I don't regret doing my own thing, but sometimes I'd like to work for my company instead of running it.
  - s5300 5y ago
    I really wouldn't, truly. The only way you could get me to work for somebody like Zuck (if I even had any qualifications they were after - I most definitely do not) is if he were lobbying the entirety of the US political system to advance stem cell research and pry medical innovation out of the evangelicals cold soulless hands. Back to Carmack - if I were Carmack, had the intelligence and experience Carmack does, along with the money and connections Carmack has - I would simply find somebody not as slimy as Zuckerberg to work on VR related things with, it's as simple as that. I'm sure there are several others who would be happy to fund him if he reached out. Do you think otherwise?
    - baby 5y ago
      Do you work for a better CEO?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
      Not every person is smart in every way. Some people are very good at reading technology, some are very good at reading the motivation of other people. It could be that Carmack mistook Zuckerberg's intentions with Oculous and believed him on the handshake promise (I'm giving a lot of grace to Carmack... it's hard to see people you respected fall by the wayside).
      - malloreon 5y ago
        Unless Carmack doesn’t have the ability to quit, he’s choosing to continue working for Zuck every day. As is every other fb employee.
      - usrusr 5y ago
        I highly doubt that the metaverse thing (VR ad mass market or whatever) can work out economically. Therefore I read the Meta rebrand as an enormous personal hybris project, "I've succeeded before and I'll succeed again (and this time even if I fail I'll still have more money than I can ever spend)". The intentions are all late 20th sci-fi dreams, fully in line with what an idealized Carmack might like. From that tech dream perspective, which I assume they both share, the Facebook way of making money while chasing those dreams is just circumstantial details. For both of them. I'd expect those two to get along excellently. One of them is now basically renaming his life's work out of admiration for what the other can do, and the other is probably not infinitely immune to flattery.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    I really think he is not interested in just the money. I think you need to give him the challenge to do something cool that he's interested in, access to teams of smart people to collaborate with, resources to be able to make an impact with the technical solutions he finds and give him the leeway to do his thing. There are not a whole lot of places that have the mass and spirit for this. Although, Carmack being him could spin something out of thin air, I'm sure. He never struck me one terribly concerned with ethical dilemmas. More the pragmatic kind that wants to work on cool stuff. But I always listen when Carmack talks because no matter his ethics, I find he has exceptional insight.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    Some people have morals and the option to make a choice not to shit on them. I wouldn't work for Facebook regardless of how much they offered (but i can afford not to because i have plenty of other options). Once you have stable amounts of it, money isn't everything.
  - jtsiskin 5y ago
    It’s probably not so much the 8 figures, but having billions of dollars and hundreds (thousands?) of engineers at your (partial) disposal, building a totally new device
- IAmWorried 5y ago
  Can I ask you something? Is Zuckerberg really THAT bad of a guy? I am no fan of FB, and I don't own any FB products, but I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation. I mean the way people talk about Zuck, you'd think he's a mass murderer. But I'm not sure what he actually did other than brag about having passwords back in college and making ruthless business decisions.
  - tata71 5y ago
    > brag about having passwords No, he openly offered personally identifying information. Bit different.
  - ses1984 5y ago
    Someone doesn’t have to be a mass murderer to make me not want to work for them.
  - s5300 5y ago
    He called his original users dumb fucks and had multiple secret meetings with the U.S. administration that just literally tried to overthrow our (U.S.) democracy. Facebook has been successfully used for, and did not feel the need to intervene in, orchestrating genocide in other countries, IIRC - and this is before his secret meetings with aforementioned administration. Something something if it can happen somewhere it can happen where you are. There are many other things, but those are the first to come to mind that would make me want to have absolutely nothing to do with him. Do you not care about other humans and civil society? If so, Zuck may be for you, but not I. > I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation. Many successful SWE's and hiring managers have publicly and anonymously discussed not wanting to work with or hire previous Facebook devs based on morals and ethics of business, not even mentioning Zuck. Are they just trying to virtue signal and act woke? I don't know.
    - gjs278 5y ago
      lol there was no attempted overthrow. go back to /r/politics
metalliqaz 5y ago
I believe he is still an advisor but now mostly concentrates on his own AI research.
RealityVoid 5y ago
Yes he is, and the highlight of Connect for me is his keynote. I posted the video somewhere else in the thread and I think there is an not-so-active submission of the video on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872 But the man is sharp and straight to the point and I just love listening to his insight.

Is Carmack still working on Oculus?

by azth 5y ago

Is Carmack still working on Oculus?

He was as of a month ago, and it doesn't appear that anything has changed since. I have lost a lot of respect for Carmack with how nonchalant he's been towards working with somebody as dubious as Zuckerberg

sydthrowaway 5y ago
You would too, for a salary in the 8 figures.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  I don't think Carmack would run into any problems finding other 8 figures jobs, and he has been rich for a long time now anyway. Also what is it with this idea of "everyone will throw morals into the trash to work at X", it's simply not true, some people DO indeed posess ideals and the integrity to go with them.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Someone like Carmack could make 8 figures doing their own thing.
  - sydthrowaway 5y ago
    True. He was probably making 8 figures under ZeniMax
    - bitwize 5y ago
      Actually, he sued ZeniMax over them not paying him the eight-figure sum he sold his stake in his company for.
  - kobalsky 5y ago
    doing your own thing can be a chore that keeps you very far from doing the fun stuff, especially if you love R&D. when you least expect it you will be in a meeting about business management crap, it's very hard to keep that at bay. I don't regret doing my own thing, but sometimes I'd like to work for my company instead of running it.
- s5300 5y ago
  I really wouldn't, truly. The only way you could get me to work for somebody like Zuck (if I even had any qualifications they were after - I most definitely do not) is if he were lobbying the entirety of the US political system to advance stem cell research and pry medical innovation out of the evangelicals cold soulless hands. Back to Carmack - if I were Carmack, had the intelligence and experience Carmack does, along with the money and connections Carmack has - I would simply find somebody not as slimy as Zuckerberg to work on VR related things with, it's as simple as that. I'm sure there are several others who would be happy to fund him if he reached out. Do you think otherwise?
  - baby 5y ago
    Do you work for a better CEO?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    Not every person is smart in every way. Some people are very good at reading technology, some are very good at reading the motivation of other people. It could be that Carmack mistook Zuckerberg's intentions with Oculous and believed him on the handshake promise (I'm giving a lot of grace to Carmack... it's hard to see people you respected fall by the wayside).
    - malloreon 5y ago
      Unless Carmack doesn’t have the ability to quit, he’s choosing to continue working for Zuck every day. As is every other fb employee.
    - usrusr 5y ago
      I highly doubt that the metaverse thing (VR ad mass market or whatever) can work out economically. Therefore I read the Meta rebrand as an enormous personal hybris project, "I've succeeded before and I'll succeed again (and this time even if I fail I'll still have more money than I can ever spend)". The intentions are all late 20th sci-fi dreams, fully in line with what an idealized Carmack might like. From that tech dream perspective, which I assume they both share, the Facebook way of making money while chasing those dreams is just circumstantial details. For both of them. I'd expect those two to get along excellently. One of them is now basically renaming his life's work out of admiration for what the other can do, and the other is probably not infinitely immune to flattery.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  I really think he is not interested in just the money. I think you need to give him the challenge to do something cool that he's interested in, access to teams of smart people to collaborate with, resources to be able to make an impact with the technical solutions he finds and give him the leeway to do his thing. There are not a whole lot of places that have the mass and spirit for this. Although, Carmack being him could spin something out of thin air, I'm sure. He never struck me one terribly concerned with ethical dilemmas. More the pragmatic kind that wants to work on cool stuff. But I always listen when Carmack talks because no matter his ethics, I find he has exceptional insight.
- sofixa 5y ago
  Some people have morals and the option to make a choice not to shit on them. I wouldn't work for Facebook regardless of how much they offered (but i can afford not to because i have plenty of other options). Once you have stable amounts of it, money isn't everything.
- jtsiskin 5y ago
  It’s probably not so much the 8 figures, but having billions of dollars and hundreds (thousands?) of engineers at your (partial) disposal, building a totally new device
IAmWorried 5y ago
Can I ask you something? Is Zuckerberg really THAT bad of a guy? I am no fan of FB, and I don't own any FB products, but I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation. I mean the way people talk about Zuck, you'd think he's a mass murderer. But I'm not sure what he actually did other than brag about having passwords back in college and making ruthless business decisions.
- tata71 5y ago
  > brag about having passwords No, he openly offered personally identifying information. Bit different.
- ses1984 5y ago
  Someone doesn’t have to be a mass murderer to make me not want to work for them.
- s5300 5y ago
  He called his original users dumb fucks and had multiple secret meetings with the U.S. administration that just literally tried to overthrow our (U.S.) democracy. Facebook has been successfully used for, and did not feel the need to intervene in, orchestrating genocide in other countries, IIRC - and this is before his secret meetings with aforementioned administration. Something something if it can happen somewhere it can happen where you are. There are many other things, but those are the first to come to mind that would make me want to have absolutely nothing to do with him. Do you not care about other humans and civil society? If so, Zuck may be for you, but not I. > I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation. Many successful SWE's and hiring managers have publicly and anonymously discussed not wanting to work with or hire previous Facebook devs based on morals and ethics of business, not even mentioning Zuck. Are they just trying to virtue signal and act woke? I don't know.
  - gjs278 5y ago
    lol there was no attempted overthrow. go back to /r/politics

metalliqaz 5y ago

I believe he is still an advisor but now mostly concentrates on his own AI research.

RealityVoid 5y ago

Yes he is, and the highlight of Connect for me is his keynote. I posted the video somewhere else in the thread and I think there is an not-so-active submission of the video on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872 But the man is sharp and straight to the point and I just love listening to his insight.