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John Carmack isn't thinking big enough for Elon A few years ago I had the same thought about Carmack. I wondered why he seemingly abandoned his vision for spa

John Carmack isn't thinking big enough for Elon A few years ago I had the same thought about Carmack. I wondered why he seemingly abandoned his vision for space travel by returning to work in the game industry on Rage. I figured Carmack probably realized that Elon's SpaceX was going to "win the race" and gave up. Or maybe Carmack is just getting old. Either way, he's still one of my heroes.

Todd 13y ago
John is less than one year older than Elon. They are both hugely smart from a technology standpoint but John's knowledge goes very deep. John's focus is implementing the future of technology personally. Elon's focus is bringing sufficient capital to bring the technological future to the present.
- illumen 13y ago
  Both came from game dev backgrounds. Carmack announced he was getting into rockets a couple of years before Musk sold paypay... and then got into rockets :) I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack heavily inspired Musk. If not just with shareware, and online payments, then with rockets. Also, the public .plan files he published in the 90s heavily inspired the web log/blog craze :)
  - jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
    These are interesting points. I think the crowd that wasn't on the web in the mid 90's may not understand just how influential Carmack was on so many of us.
smackfu 13y ago
Armadillo vs. SpaceX just seem like completely different scales of project. Like Armadillo had the kind of problems that hobbyists have, like they couldn't get a good enough quality of hydrogen peroxide, and they had problems sourcing tanks and such. SpaceX just throws money and people at those kind of problems.
jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
Honestly I think it really is as simple as what he answered in this talk: he doesn't want to risk the money. Elon on the other hand, has been willing to double down on bets involving 100's of millions of dollars or more. That speaks to a very different view of risk/reward between them (and not one I think is negative to either side). Also, while Carmack is certainly enormously respected in his field, he hasn't worked much outside that. Elon's track record has diverse successes, and I think that means it's a lot easier for Elon to convince investors to join his endeavors.

Todd 13y ago

John is less than one year older than Elon. They are both hugely smart from a technology standpoint but John's knowledge goes very deep. John's focus is implementing the future of technology personally. Elon's focus is bringing sufficient capital to bring the technological future to the present.

illumen 13y ago
Both came from game dev backgrounds. Carmack announced he was getting into rockets a couple of years before Musk sold paypay... and then got into rockets :) I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack heavily inspired Musk. If not just with shareware, and online payments, then with rockets. Also, the public .plan files he published in the 90s heavily inspired the web log/blog craze :)
- jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
  These are interesting points. I think the crowd that wasn't on the web in the mid 90's may not understand just how influential Carmack was on so many of us.

smackfu 13y ago

Armadillo vs. SpaceX just seem like completely different scales of project. Like Armadillo had the kind of problems that hobbyists have, like they couldn't get a good enough quality of hydrogen peroxide, and they had problems sourcing tanks and such. SpaceX just throws money and people at those kind of problems.

jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago

Honestly I think it really is as simple as what he answered in this talk: he doesn't want to risk the money. Elon on the other hand, has been willing to double down on bets involving 100's of millions of dollars or more. That speaks to a very different view of risk/reward between them (and not one I think is negative to either side). Also, while Carmack is certainly enormously respected in his field, he hasn't worked much outside that. Elon's track record has diverse successes, and I think that means it's a lot easier for Elon to convince investors to join his endeavors.