”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.”
It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.
Throwaway because it could be easy to identify my position from my normal account name.
Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he would say words to the effect of "I don't care, because I still believe I'm right from an ideological background". He would devalue people, there expertise, there experience, and there thoughts because "I'm John Carmack". Truthfully, I have never worked with someone before who was somehow so politely toxic to a workplace.
Carmacks work in VR was absolutely invaluable from a technical standpoint, but VR now is as successful as it is in spite of his influence, not because of it. When I hear people say "If only Meta would let Carmack do what he wants we'd see his ideal VR experience and it would be amazing". You already saw it. It was Oculus Go, and by every metric is was a commercial, financial, and technical, disaster.
A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible.
> It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.
This doesn't actually surprise me in the least bit, and that's not a criticism of either FB/Meta or Carmack. It's simply that after a couple of decades in industry, I now see that effective organizational leaders are exceedingly rare, and I've seen now many super-experts --legends in their fields-- join big companies and not find their footing.
I also don't really buy the "you gotta be good at cutthroat politics." I have plenty of examples across multiple top-tier companies, of senior leadership who were smart, thoughtful, effective... and still reasonable and compassionate.
I think it's simply that it's tough to move people, plain as that. And in Carmack's case, I will wager that his expertise and track record were not enough to get everyone to drop what they're doing and follow his lead. After all, there are many other legends at Meta too. And, there's an abundance of good ideas all fighting for limited mindshare and limited ability to act.
Ironically I felt reassured reading this. "[...] I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after [...] evidence piles up" especially resonates with me. While I rationally understand it's just corporate bureaucracy / politics, sometimes I still wonder if I were just a bit more capable I'd be more persuasive.
If John fucking Carmack cannot move the bureaucracy this way, then it's folly for me to try the same. I should accept that we're playing checkers not chess.
This is why there are so many leaks from Facebook. My sister is a reporter and she says that people leak when they feel they can't influence the decision of the org, that they are a Cassandra who is being ignored by the organization. That there is so much leaking from Facebook- much of it from seemingly senior and highly respected people- suggests major problems in the decision making process there.
> This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.
I think we can only speculate about reasons, so everybody is gonna project. Maybe the Facebook culture is uniquely bad. Maybe Carmack isn't an effective leader. Maybe it's just how large corporations work. Maybe he was dealt a bad hand.
Meanwhile, I admire that he had the guts to see the issue, say it out loud in a self-critical way, and call it quits. Most people don't.
I have a genuine question about what to do when one finds oneself in this type of position and one is surrounded by people who seemingly do give a damn (and one isn't compelled to just give up and leave).
In my experience, the software industry, in it’s aggressive desire to be egalitarian, has an authority problem. I have encountered the “I told you so one year ago but we just had to learn the hard way didn't we” situation more times than it seems efficient. I am not unaware that I may be selectively remembering things and I’m not so prideful to ignore that I’ve also made calls that turn out to need adjusting down the road… but it baffles me why people put in positions of power and leadership are so often ignored almost on the whim of some well meaning but misguided other party. Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he?
That saying about how teenagers and twenty year old think they're immortal? There's some variant of that for programmers. That failure mode is something that happens to other people, to suckers, so I don't have to change direction because some guy who's going grey at the temples tells me I'm walking toward a cliff.
I've been in places where my job became a bit of a cleaner, for things that shouldn't have needed to be cleaned in the first place. When I realize that's what I'm doing - when it's most or all of what I'm doing - I leave. Sounds like John might have similar boundaries, and found himself standing at the edge of one.
I'd really like to see him try his own thing again, and either not sell it this time or be quite a bit more precious about what he's willing to part with and for how many zeroes.
> It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.
I'd be very careful about making that assertion when you're only hearing one side of the story. There is a good quote from the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey about why she never takes sides in a broken marriage: "Because however much the couple may strive to be honest, no one is ever in possession of the facts."
>It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.
He worked for an Ad company that voraciously mined through their user's data. Unless he was able to find new ways to monetize their users or bypass iOS's opt in app tracking, I see no reason why they would even care.
I so wish I could "kill stupid things before they cause damage", "set direction" and have people follow, but it seems especially difficult for technical people.
We spend all-day every-day talking to our subservient (a compiler) but a human is fuzzy and unreliable which is compounded by team size. Carmack can realize something in an instant but it is amazing how long it can take an entire team.
One thing I've noticed that really does not work is "complaining", if Carmack thinks he is complaining, then magnify that by 10 for others on the team.
Rather than attacking an idea directly, I'm wondering if ignoring the idea may be more effective. This way there's no one to fight and the idea can slip away without any ego or drama, there's no face to lose.
If you really can't help the situation, then leaving is the last resort. Oh well, on to the next thing, very curious to see what Carmack gets into next.
That's what it looks like from the outside, but the reality is that he works alongside people at the same level as him as far as the company is concerned. His experience is incredible but its likely that the people he works with are also deeply experienced engineering managers too. He's just more famous.
I don't work at Meta, but I assume that, like any other bureaucracy
It's a large company, with home-grown political feifdoms - and technical merits for ideas aren't good enough to get things your way. Even if he is a big cheese in the world of actually knowing things, that doesn't really matter to his executive peers.
You need to both know things, and be very good at politicking to be successful.
(Im not comparing my skillset to Carmack, im my eyes hes a god of programming and has an insanely deep skillset and knowledge about so much software related)
Sometimes i feel the same, a new feature is requested and i directly see this is an anti-feature, or just overall a bad decision. I voice my concern, but the client request goes first.
Next up the feature is poorly implemented, usually "just like the client wanted it" without any bigger design. Testing is barely done, and finally it goes to prod. Next is a 3 month period of bugfixes, and ultimately this one feature can take up 60-70% of a devs time.
Can people not see the big flashing warning lights of his attitude right there in his faux self deprecating comment? When one talks about killing 'stupid things', that's actually a colleague's initiative, or possibly some project in flight, with a team of people working on it. People putting in blood sweat and tears. Not everyone in the organisation gets to choose what they are working on. For us adults in the room, who have worked our entire careers treating our colleagues with respect, this is not how you effect change in an organisation. Sure, privately one may think this or that is stupid, but you don't go around using that language. It just offsides people. To bring change you need to bring people with you.
I mean the guy came up in the gaming industry, which by many reports is somewhere on the spectrum between techbro dominated monoculture (not unlike this forum), through to just abusive of its employees, so his bar is very low. And yes I know he was brilliant, but there's no special rules for him because he made Quake run fast.
At the level he was brought on, something more than technical skills were required. He failed.
I'm as shocked as you are. What a wasted opportunity by petty people with big egos. And I paid for it literally. I bought a Oculus set and stopped using soon after. What a disappointment. I wanted to support the technology, but my good will was squandered. At least I feel vindicated by every thing John Carmack says because I thought some similar things.
Idk I feel like Carmack is a genius, and has done genius tech related things at id. But does he really have credentials to speak on latest modern developments in technology?
Does he have any skin in the game? Last I heard of him was Megatexturing in idtech 5 and that wasn't really a huge marvel nor necessarily did it make the engine the forefront of game tech.
It's interesting to me that, even here where people pride themselves on their intellectual and rational superiority, we can still observe the primitive human tendency to appeal to authority; see the top throwaway comment [1].
"I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage"
One of the most important things an organization can have is a "no man". A project that I was involved in when I worked at Google was completed on time primarily because we had a very senior (DE level) engineer tangentially involved in the project. He was near the end of his career, and he just didn't give a f* about politics. He'd sit in design reviews and rip stupid features to shreds, with accurate estimates of what they'd cost in terms of headcount and project delays. He was probably the most valuable member of the team because he was respected enough that his objections kept the project focused and on scope, and it was a 20% project for him.
He just founded a new company called Keen Technologies to work on AGI. Not surprising that he wants to focus on that now. He's been part-time at Meta for years. I'm interested to find out what kind of business model he's planning for an AGI company.
> As anyone who listens to my unscripted Connect talks knows, I have always been pretty frustrated with how things get done at FB/Meta. Everything necessary for spectacular success is right there, but it doesn't get put together effectively.
> I thought that the "derivative of delivered value" was positive in 2021, but that it turned negative in 2022. There are good reasons to believe that it just edged back into positive territory again, but there is a notable gap between Mark Zuckerberg and I on various strategic issues, so I knew it would be extra frustrating to keep pushing my viewpoint internally. I am all in on building AGI at Keen Technologies now.
“During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset. He admitted he had many things to be ‘grumpy’ about, like the company's rate of progress on technological advancements and the basic functionality of the headsets. He said it was frustrating to hear from people inside Meta who found the Quest 2 headsets so unreliable that they refused to use them for work or demo them for people outside the company.”
Has anyone tried accounting for the tens of billions of dollars Facebook is spending on this? This pattern—massive outlays followed by poor, possibly-rushed possibly-underpowered workmanship—sounds remarkably like corruption.
John Carmack leaving your organization with a resignation letter like that is an undeniable sign that it is permeated with the rot of ineffective and self-deceptive middle management. If you've followed John's career you know that he has enough FU money and respect that he doesn't care about performance reviews, your promotion ladders or departmental politics. As he writes, he cares about shipping cutting edge technology nobody else thought possible that delivers exceptional value, and brand new experiences. His ethos is egos be damned, and breaking down organizational and cross-corporate boundaries.
Carmack should have been invaluable at Meta as the speaker of hard and uncomfortable truths. Likely Zuck & Boz have no idea whats really going on with their technology and are insulated by layers of self-deceptive status reporting. Once you step into management and away from the visceral struggle of building and using nascent technology daily, you are likely to make the stupidest and most illogical decisions. Setting that hard shipping deadline to coincide with your conference feels like you are making your team more efficient, but likely you are also forcing them to take on eventually crippling technical debt, or make rushed and ill-informed choices.
Its likely that top engineering talent, the ones who actually know how to build the next several generation of VR technology, already left or will leave soon. Those that remain will drown in so much clueless bullshit that they will pop out another VRML or Second Life and call it the metaverse.
I see a lot of negative comment on the other thread and on twitter so I feel the need to comment as well. It’d be great to get the perspective from someone who worked there, but I can offer mine as an outsider (worked on a different team at fb).
Back then, I would religiously read every workplace posts from Carmack (that wasn’t hidden to other orgs). I loved everything he was saying, I always found it really insightful. It also seemed clear (much before he went part time) that he was saying that on the outskirt of the project.
There’s a big culture of flatness at fb (and now meta). No titles are public, and you’re supposed to respect everybody’s opinion in the room. You’re supposed to lead without authority: by convincing people. You’re also quite free to explore things, as long as you can make a case for it.
There’s upsides and downsides to such environment. You can really multiply yourself if you create trust and clout. On the other hand, authority and a big title doesn’t always gives you room for directing a project.
I was always wondering how effective Carmack was going to be in such an environment. He doesn’t seem to be the type to lead, but I can see this happening in a small team, but an entire org that’s growing extremely quickly? For the kind of things he wanted to happen you’d have to make sure to hire people who cared about exactly the same kind of stuff, which doesn’t really happen when you’re in a diverse environment. Extremists must then spend their time pulling the group in one direction or the other.
I’m a strong believer in dictatorship at companies. Every team has someone with ultimate decision making power, as does every project with a project leader, and above teams are leaders who have authority above them, and so on. Of course there are meetings and discussions but there is always someone with the authority to make a decision that everyone has to respect.
Honestly it benefits everyone. ICs like that authority is clear. Effective companies are mission-focused and they are not democracies. FB sounds extremely bloated and ineffective.
2. People within Meta not "Giving a Dam!" / Poor decisions made within the org
3. Poor quality of the execution which I guess is related to #2
Relevant quote:
"It pains me to hear people say that they don't even get their headset out to show off at the company because they know it's going to be a mess of charging and updating before they can make it do something cool," Carmack said at the time. "VR should be a delight to demo for your friends."
I feel John's pain, after a decade of consulting and working for big tech companies.
I think though the major skill at a large organization is not speed of delivery, or even amazing software, but getting everyone bought in, and rowing in the same direction. That's really hard, and 90% of it is emotional labor. That's actually what a Principal Eng or Director does at a big company. Then if you can actually turn the 'Death Star cannon' of a large org at something, it's really powerful. But it can certainly be an exhausting skill.
I think folks who are great software builders, that thrive at small companies can sometimes fail to appreciate those skills. Conversely, 'big company' people look at the crazy, yet productive, ways of small companies and roll their eyes at their lack of "maturity". Both sides require very unique skillsets, and I'm appreciating, often disjoint sets of people that thrive in both settings.
John Carmack did a 5 hr podcast with Lex Fridman recently [1]. Moving away from Meta seemed like something that had been happening slowly over a long period of time.
The real problem here is the memtaverse. This is a solution to a problem no one has and it's costing a vast amount of money for, well, nothing really.
Why does it exist? Simple. Meta needs a new monopoly since FB usage is declining and IG is getting eaten alive by Tiktok. Messaging (ie FB Messenger, IG Direct, WhatsApp) is not enough.
Meta has long seen VR then AR as the natural evolution from text -> image -> video. I think it's clear that the VR part of this at least is in error. Personaly I see VR as never being anything more than a niche. Somehow spending $20B+ a year on that without any kind of product-market fit or a vision for what problem this will solve for people is the problem.
AR is way more likely to have a future but the tech isn't there yet and there are doubts it'll be anything more than a niche either. This is a deep topic but projecting things onto real vision isn't exactly simple. Even something as simple as the color black is a problem. Focus is another giant problem.
For anyone surprised how a project can spend billions without producing anything, this is classic big company poorly defined project type stuff. A project will expand to fill available resources. Writing a blank check just increases the head count. It doesn't produce more just because you have more head count. People without clear direction will invent fake work for themselves. They'll solve non-problems, creates frameworks, add processes and so on as necessary.
His unscripted talks were amazing. Everytime I watched them I was thinking "ok, the official Meta announcements are corny, but there is still someone that still cares about what is the actual end result;" that's why I was still semi-positive about Meta.
Nothing could be a stronger indictment of Mark Zuckerberg's ability to lead teams and create innovative products than the fact that he wasn't able to utilize John fucking Carmack properly.
Even with all the money in the world, Zuckerberg is just too conventional, uncreative, and lacking in genuine enthusiasm. He's been totally unable to create the kind of esprit de corps present in every great team.
He cloned and acquired his entire career and it's made him weak. He was never forced to actually get good.
What inspiration there is at Meta today was brought there by Palmer Luckey and John Carmack years ago. And, since it can't be cloned or bought by Zuckerberg, it has simply dwindled away year by year.
The upside is that Oculus launched the VR industery. And now it's just a matter of time until VR evolves from a toy to a powerful tool. Maybe Meta will eventually make it happen, they certainly have the money, but more likely Apple or a startup will give it The Big Push.
The skills and talents needed to lead and influence a big organization are different from those needed to influence a small team. Once the team size surpasses Dunbar's number, a phase shift is required into a qualitatively different way of leading, in order to be effective.
A few years ago I took a new role in my org, a team in a big tech company, where I was expected to influence the technical direction the key infrastructure that supports our mission. I had no direct authority to tell anyone what to do, except the small team that reported to me. But I had the endorsement of the bosses and a reputation as a respected technical voice from years as a senior IC before moving to management. No problem, I thought. We're small, and I know everyone and they know me. Those things had always been enough.
During that time, though, the team headcount grew fourfold, we had been less than a hundred people and now we're three hundred or more. We stopped calling ourselves a "team" and started to say "org" or "department". It was impossible to have personal relationships with everyone, and the ways I used to influence change stopped working. I became ineffective. I could influence individuals, but without defined processes and management systems that cemented my authority I couldn't influence the org efficiently anymore. I could see things going in bad directions, and I could get meetings with leaders and give them my opinion and recommendations. The would listen and nod in agreement, but the ship wouldn't turn.
The result for me was many months of near-burnout, the feeling of shouting into the void. What saved me was leaning on project and product management, and stepping back into a role of setting and influencing requirements and priorities, where I still have a voice people listen to. I use my one-on-one relationships to preview my vision for our direction and get feedback and buy-in from the other leaders, but the PMs manage the team-wide communication and execution. After almost a year of this, I think we're starting to be back in a good place where we have a roadmap and know what we're doing, but I also know we'll never be as nimble as we were when we were 50-75 people.
I actually thought facebook was doing a ok job with oculus until the whole 'metaverse' social push happend
it feels like the people invovled are serverly deteacted on what people want out of VR in general
it's hard for me to imagine someone like carmack prefering to work in a envinronment like that (tearing down corp/product walls) vs building his own team and trying to solve technical challenges
In very large organizations (>150 people) incentives shift dramatically because it becomes more valuable to engage in politicking than actually delivering value.
Carmack has perpetually worked in smaller orgs as an IC and has a reputation for being difficult (that is, a reputation for actually giving a shit).
Based on Bahcall's hypothesis, one potential solution would be to break the org into smaller units and create milestone based incentives like large team bonuses centered around performance bonuses
"He is a well known and regarded game designer, who moved to a new consulting role at Oculus in 2019"
Err, WAT? In the context of gamedev, game design is not what I'd say Carmack is known for. He's firmly in 'down in the weeds implementation detail and optimization' territory. How does one write anything about Carmack and get something so fundamentally wrong about who he is and what he's done professionally?
Game designer credit in this context (id software) generally goes to Romero, if anyone.
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arjuna|3 years ago|reply
It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.
[+] [-] throwaway_8989|3 years ago|reply
Carmack is many thing, engineering genius above them. However, he would frequently wade into areas where he had no experience, demand others do what he said, ignore evidence he was wrong, bully people, and disparage entire teams who were doing good, and in some cases legally required, work. When data proved his idea was wrong, he would say words to the effect of "I don't care, because I still believe I'm right from an ideological background". He would devalue people, there expertise, there experience, and there thoughts because "I'm John Carmack". Truthfully, I have never worked with someone before who was somehow so politely toxic to a workplace.
Carmacks work in VR was absolutely invaluable from a technical standpoint, but VR now is as successful as it is in spite of his influence, not because of it. When I hear people say "If only Meta would let Carmack do what he wants we'd see his ideal VR experience and it would be amazing". You already saw it. It was Oculus Go, and by every metric is was a commercial, financial, and technical, disaster.
[+] [-] mathgladiator|3 years ago|reply
A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible.
I left a year ago, and I've become beyond happy.
[+] [-] khazhoux|3 years ago|reply
This doesn't actually surprise me in the least bit, and that's not a criticism of either FB/Meta or Carmack. It's simply that after a couple of decades in industry, I now see that effective organizational leaders are exceedingly rare, and I've seen now many super-experts --legends in their fields-- join big companies and not find their footing.
I also don't really buy the "you gotta be good at cutthroat politics." I have plenty of examples across multiple top-tier companies, of senior leadership who were smart, thoughtful, effective... and still reasonable and compassionate.
I think it's simply that it's tough to move people, plain as that. And in Carmack's case, I will wager that his expertise and track record were not enough to get everyone to drop what they're doing and follow his lead. After all, there are many other legends at Meta too. And, there's an abundance of good ideas all fighting for limited mindshare and limited ability to act.
[+] [-] RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u|3 years ago|reply
If John fucking Carmack cannot move the bureaucracy this way, then it's folly for me to try the same. I should accept that we're playing checkers not chess.
[+] [-] mandevil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Redoubts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] into_infinity|3 years ago|reply
Meanwhile, I admire that he had the guts to see the issue, say it out loud in a self-critical way, and call it quits. Most people don't.
[+] [-] posharma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcow|3 years ago|reply
In my experience, the software industry, in it’s aggressive desire to be egalitarian, has an authority problem. I have encountered the “I told you so one year ago but we just had to learn the hard way didn't we” situation more times than it seems efficient. I am not unaware that I may be selectively remembering things and I’m not so prideful to ignore that I’ve also made calls that turn out to need adjusting down the road… but it baffles me why people put in positions of power and leadership are so often ignored almost on the whim of some well meaning but misguided other party. Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he?
[+] [-] Forge36|3 years ago|reply
Edit: A little more searching and I found the full memo
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-john-carmack-scathing-e...
[+] [-] hinkley|3 years ago|reply
I've been in places where my job became a bit of a cleaner, for things that shouldn't have needed to be cleaned in the first place. When I realize that's what I'm doing - when it's most or all of what I'm doing - I leave. Sounds like John might have similar boundaries, and found himself standing at the edge of one.
I'd really like to see him try his own thing again, and either not sell it this time or be quite a bit more precious about what he's willing to part with and for how many zeroes.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|3 years ago|reply
I'd be very careful about making that assertion when you're only hearing one side of the story. There is a good quote from the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey about why she never takes sides in a broken marriage: "Because however much the couple may strive to be honest, no one is ever in possession of the facts."
I strongly think that applies here.
[+] [-] kernal|3 years ago|reply
He worked for an Ad company that voraciously mined through their user's data. Unless he was able to find new ways to monetize their users or bypass iOS's opt in app tracking, I see no reason why they would even care.
[+] [-] actionfromafar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freddref|3 years ago|reply
We spend all-day every-day talking to our subservient (a compiler) but a human is fuzzy and unreliable which is compounded by team size. Carmack can realize something in an instant but it is amazing how long it can take an entire team.
One thing I've noticed that really does not work is "complaining", if Carmack thinks he is complaining, then magnify that by 10 for others on the team.
Rather than attacking an idea directly, I'm wondering if ignoring the idea may be more effective. This way there's no one to fight and the idea can slip away without any ego or drama, there's no face to lose.
If you really can't help the situation, then leaving is the last resort. Oh well, on to the next thing, very curious to see what Carmack gets into next.
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loppg|3 years ago|reply
If you are an expert and demand high code quality, you are a class traitor and the bureaucrats will come after you.
This shows in the code quality of the OSS examples I have seen from Facebook.
[+] [-] zppln|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|3 years ago|reply
It's a large company, with home-grown political feifdoms - and technical merits for ideas aren't good enough to get things your way. Even if he is a big cheese in the world of actually knowing things, that doesn't really matter to his executive peers.
You need to both know things, and be very good at politicking to be successful.
[+] [-] jjtheblunt|3 years ago|reply
Maybe he’s condescending in a team of bright people, and sees the world as him and then everyone lesser?
It’s hard to say what blend of reasons, other than what he explains.
[+] [-] phplovesong|3 years ago|reply
(Im not comparing my skillset to Carmack, im my eyes hes a god of programming and has an insanely deep skillset and knowledge about so much software related)
Sometimes i feel the same, a new feature is requested and i directly see this is an anti-feature, or just overall a bad decision. I voice my concern, but the client request goes first.
Next up the feature is poorly implemented, usually "just like the client wanted it" without any bigger design. Testing is barely done, and finally it goes to prod. Next is a 3 month period of bugfixes, and ultimately this one feature can take up 60-70% of a devs time.
Then the process repeats.
[+] [-] throwaway99rtq|3 years ago|reply
I mean the guy came up in the gaming industry, which by many reports is somewhere on the spectrum between techbro dominated monoculture (not unlike this forum), through to just abusive of its employees, so his bar is very low. And yes I know he was brilliant, but there's no special rules for him because he made Quake run fast.
At the level he was brought on, something more than technical skills were required. He failed.
[+] [-] labrador|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericzawo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxy|3 years ago|reply
Does he have any skin in the game? Last I heard of him was Megatexturing in idtech 5 and that wasn't really a huge marvel nor necessarily did it make the engine the forefront of game tech.
[+] [-] VoodooJuJu|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34026253
[+] [-] scrame|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xwowsersx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewg123|3 years ago|reply
One of the most important things an organization can have is a "no man". A project that I was involved in when I worked at Google was completed on time primarily because we had a very senior (DE level) engineer tangentially involved in the project. He was near the end of his career, and he just didn't give a f* about politics. He'd sit in design reviews and rip stupid features to shreds, with accurate estimates of what they'd cost in terms of headcount and project delays. He was probably the most valuable member of the team because he was respected enough that his objections kept the project focused and on scope, and it was a 20% project for him.
[+] [-] modeless|3 years ago|reply
Edit: he posted his leaving message publicly here: https://www.facebook.com/100006735798590/posts/pfbid0iPixEvP...
Additional public comments on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1603931901491908610
> As anyone who listens to my unscripted Connect talks knows, I have always been pretty frustrated with how things get done at FB/Meta. Everything necessary for spectacular success is right there, but it doesn't get put together effectively.
> I thought that the "derivative of delivered value" was positive in 2021, but that it turned negative in 2022. There are good reasons to believe that it just edged back into positive territory again, but there is a notable gap between Mark Zuckerberg and I on various strategic issues, so I knew it would be extra frustrating to keep pushing my viewpoint internally. I am all in on building AGI at Keen Technologies now.
@dang can you change the link to one of these?
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|3 years ago|reply
Has anyone tried accounting for the tens of billions of dollars Facebook is spending on this? This pattern—massive outlays followed by poor, possibly-rushed possibly-underpowered workmanship—sounds remarkably like corruption.
[+] [-] flipgimble|3 years ago|reply
Carmack should have been invaluable at Meta as the speaker of hard and uncomfortable truths. Likely Zuck & Boz have no idea whats really going on with their technology and are insulated by layers of self-deceptive status reporting. Once you step into management and away from the visceral struggle of building and using nascent technology daily, you are likely to make the stupidest and most illogical decisions. Setting that hard shipping deadline to coincide with your conference feels like you are making your team more efficient, but likely you are also forcing them to take on eventually crippling technical debt, or make rushed and ill-informed choices.
Its likely that top engineering talent, the ones who actually know how to build the next several generation of VR technology, already left or will leave soon. Those that remain will drown in so much clueless bullshit that they will pop out another VRML or Second Life and call it the metaverse.
[+] [-] baby|3 years ago|reply
Back then, I would religiously read every workplace posts from Carmack (that wasn’t hidden to other orgs). I loved everything he was saying, I always found it really insightful. It also seemed clear (much before he went part time) that he was saying that on the outskirt of the project.
There’s a big culture of flatness at fb (and now meta). No titles are public, and you’re supposed to respect everybody’s opinion in the room. You’re supposed to lead without authority: by convincing people. You’re also quite free to explore things, as long as you can make a case for it.
There’s upsides and downsides to such environment. You can really multiply yourself if you create trust and clout. On the other hand, authority and a big title doesn’t always gives you room for directing a project.
I was always wondering how effective Carmack was going to be in such an environment. He doesn’t seem to be the type to lead, but I can see this happening in a small team, but an entire org that’s growing extremely quickly? For the kind of things he wanted to happen you’d have to make sure to hire people who cared about exactly the same kind of stuff, which doesn’t really happen when you’re in a diverse environment. Extremists must then spend their time pulling the group in one direction or the other.
[+] [-] monero-xmr|3 years ago|reply
Honestly it benefits everyone. ICs like that authority is clear. Effective companies are mission-focused and they are not democracies. FB sounds extremely bloated and ineffective.
[+] [-] srajabi|3 years ago|reply
1. Rate of progress on AR/VR at meta
2. People within Meta not "Giving a Dam!" / Poor decisions made within the org
3. Poor quality of the execution which I guess is related to #2
Relevant quote: "It pains me to hear people say that they don't even get their headset out to show off at the company because they know it's going to be a mess of charging and updating before they can make it do something cool," Carmack said at the time. "VR should be a delight to demo for your friends."
[+] [-] softwaredoug|3 years ago|reply
I think though the major skill at a large organization is not speed of delivery, or even amazing software, but getting everyone bought in, and rowing in the same direction. That's really hard, and 90% of it is emotional labor. That's actually what a Principal Eng or Director does at a big company. Then if you can actually turn the 'Death Star cannon' of a large org at something, it's really powerful. But it can certainly be an exhausting skill.
I think folks who are great software builders, that thrive at small companies can sometimes fail to appreciate those skills. Conversely, 'big company' people look at the crazy, yet productive, ways of small companies and roll their eyes at their lack of "maturity". Both sides require very unique skillsets, and I'm appreciating, often disjoint sets of people that thrive in both settings.
[+] [-] sxg|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://lexfridman.com/john-carmack/
[+] [-] cletus|3 years ago|reply
Why does it exist? Simple. Meta needs a new monopoly since FB usage is declining and IG is getting eaten alive by Tiktok. Messaging (ie FB Messenger, IG Direct, WhatsApp) is not enough.
Meta has long seen VR then AR as the natural evolution from text -> image -> video. I think it's clear that the VR part of this at least is in error. Personaly I see VR as never being anything more than a niche. Somehow spending $20B+ a year on that without any kind of product-market fit or a vision for what problem this will solve for people is the problem.
AR is way more likely to have a future but the tech isn't there yet and there are doubts it'll be anything more than a niche either. This is a deep topic but projecting things onto real vision isn't exactly simple. Even something as simple as the color black is a problem. Focus is another giant problem.
For anyone surprised how a project can spend billions without producing anything, this is classic big company poorly defined project type stuff. A project will expand to fill available resources. Writing a blank check just increases the head count. It doesn't produce more just because you have more head count. People without clear direction will invent fake work for themselves. They'll solve non-problems, creates frameworks, add processes and so on as necessary.
Disclaimer: ex-Facebooker.
[+] [-] tomalaci|3 years ago|reply
Also, the other discussion (700+ comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34022484
[+] [-] shp0ngle|3 years ago|reply
Well, I guess not anymore.
[+] [-] jyap|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staunch|3 years ago|reply
Even with all the money in the world, Zuckerberg is just too conventional, uncreative, and lacking in genuine enthusiasm. He's been totally unable to create the kind of esprit de corps present in every great team.
He cloned and acquired his entire career and it's made him weak. He was never forced to actually get good.
What inspiration there is at Meta today was brought there by Palmer Luckey and John Carmack years ago. And, since it can't be cloned or bought by Zuckerberg, it has simply dwindled away year by year.
The upside is that Oculus launched the VR industery. And now it's just a matter of time until VR evolves from a toy to a powerful tool. Maybe Meta will eventually make it happen, they certainly have the money, but more likely Apple or a startup will give it The Big Push.
[+] [-] jp57|3 years ago|reply
A few years ago I took a new role in my org, a team in a big tech company, where I was expected to influence the technical direction the key infrastructure that supports our mission. I had no direct authority to tell anyone what to do, except the small team that reported to me. But I had the endorsement of the bosses and a reputation as a respected technical voice from years as a senior IC before moving to management. No problem, I thought. We're small, and I know everyone and they know me. Those things had always been enough.
During that time, though, the team headcount grew fourfold, we had been less than a hundred people and now we're three hundred or more. We stopped calling ourselves a "team" and started to say "org" or "department". It was impossible to have personal relationships with everyone, and the ways I used to influence change stopped working. I became ineffective. I could influence individuals, but without defined processes and management systems that cemented my authority I couldn't influence the org efficiently anymore. I could see things going in bad directions, and I could get meetings with leaders and give them my opinion and recommendations. The would listen and nod in agreement, but the ship wouldn't turn.
The result for me was many months of near-burnout, the feeling of shouting into the void. What saved me was leaning on project and product management, and stepping back into a role of setting and influencing requirements and priorities, where I still have a voice people listen to. I use my one-on-one relationships to preview my vision for our direction and get feedback and buy-in from the other leaders, but the PMs manage the team-wide communication and execution. After almost a year of this, I think we're starting to be back in a good place where we have a roadmap and know what we're doing, but I also know we'll never be as nimble as we were when we were 50-75 people.
[+] [-] cokeandpepsi|3 years ago|reply
it feels like the people invovled are serverly deteacted on what people want out of VR in general
it's hard for me to imagine someone like carmack prefering to work in a envinronment like that (tearing down corp/product walls) vs building his own team and trying to solve technical challenges
[+] [-] LarsDu88|3 years ago|reply
In very large organizations (>150 people) incentives shift dramatically because it becomes more valuable to engage in politicking than actually delivering value.
Carmack has perpetually worked in smaller orgs as an IC and has a reputation for being difficult (that is, a reputation for actually giving a shit).
Based on Bahcall's hypothesis, one potential solution would be to break the org into smaller units and create milestone based incentives like large team bonuses centered around performance bonuses
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
Err, WAT? In the context of gamedev, game design is not what I'd say Carmack is known for. He's firmly in 'down in the weeds implementation detail and optimization' territory. How does one write anything about Carmack and get something so fundamentally wrong about who he is and what he's done professionally?
Game designer credit in this context (id software) generally goes to Romero, if anyone.
Edit: Just look at Carmack's wikipedia page FFS, he hasn't been credited for design since SOFTDISK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack#Games