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I've always admired Carmack's candid insights. Rather than put up a PR facade instead he readily admits that he feels Armadillo stumbled because he took his han
by snorkel 13y ago
I've always admired Carmack's candid insights. Rather than put up a PR facade instead he readily admits that he feels Armadillo stumbled because he took his hands off the wheel, failed to mass produce test rockets, and the staff spent too much energy coordinating with NASA rather than doing R&D. Very helpful pointers for entrepreneurs.
I don't care about these setbacks, I still have hopes for Armidillo and I think Carmack will realize his dream of VTOL rocketry eventually. He's taken the right approach of addressing a hard problem that no one is solving, and he is solving it very methodically. It's only a matter of time before the last obstacles are cleared.
- aculver 13y agoIn addition to being candid, it also never ceases to amaze me how normal he comes off, despite being John Carmack! I love the bit about how funding this company has always been a negotiation with his wife.
- _delirium 13y agoIt felt more bit shifting-the-blame to me than candid (but maybe he does believe it). What happened is John Carmack started an aerospace company thinking that he could parlay his success in writing game engines into shaking up aerospace, but he couldn't. And now he's trying to blame it on the people he hired, instead of admitting he failed. He seems to want to keep alive the fantasy that only if only he had really worked at it, his idea was right all along, and it's only the subordinates tasked with implementing it who failed, not him.