John Carmack had some choice words when he left Meta.
"We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.
“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.”
Imagine getting John Carmack on your project and ignoring him. Like, what was the point? Zuck got lucky in the beginning and was cut throat enough to hold on to it, but he has no entrepreneurial talent.
I like to think of the average tech billionaire as Dustin Hoffman from Rain Man specifically in the Casino scene. He’s a savant at counting cards, and Tom Cruise’s character (the investors) see that and help him rack in a shitload of money at blackjack.
Then Hoffman’s character decides he wants to try a roulette-type game, a game for which savant-like card counting skills offer absolutely no advantage, and the investors, unable or unwilling to see how roulette is nothing like blackjack just blindly sign on and Tom Cruise quickly loses $3,000.
Why the fuck do we think the dweeb who made Facebook in college and hasn’t lived as a normal human for two decades would have any particular insight into how people would use VR?
He also bought giphy, onavo, parse, ctrl-labs, eyegroove, daytum, and like a dozen other companies, maybe more. Some of these are totally a waste (onavo and parse were shuttered relatively quickly, giphy cost almost a half billion and got basically no roi, etc). It’s more that you’re bound to hit a few zingers if you can just keep trying because you basically have an infinite money glitch.
Also ctrl-labs is neural interfaces. Creepy name for that right? Especially when fucking meta owns it. Yuck.
I suspect only creeps will buy his peep glasses for rapists and pedophiles. They should be banned and if they are not they should at least be like the apple ones, which are basically a gigantic sign that says “this person desperately wants to follow you and your child into the bathroom and videotape it. They want it so bad they spent $3200 and walk around with this stupid asshole shit strapped to their face”
Facebook would make considerably more money if he stayed out of the decision making processes and just let talented people do it. But ego is going to ego I guess.
John Carmack had some choice words when he left Meta.
Imagine getting John Carmack on your project and ignoring him. Like, what was the point? Zuck got lucky in the beginning and was cut throat enough to hold on to it, but he has no entrepreneurial talent.
He had it. Once.
After that, he’s just another mogul with tons of money trying to impose his products by abuse of predominant position.
I like to think of the average tech billionaire as Dustin Hoffman from Rain Man specifically in the Casino scene. He’s a savant at counting cards, and Tom Cruise’s character (the investors) see that and help him rack in a shitload of money at blackjack.
Then Hoffman’s character decides he wants to try a roulette-type game, a game for which savant-like card counting skills offer absolutely no advantage, and the investors, unable or unwilling to see how roulette is nothing like blackjack just blindly sign on and Tom Cruise quickly loses $3,000.
Why the fuck do we think the dweeb who made Facebook in college and hasn’t lived as a normal human for two decades would have any particular insight into how people would use VR?
The scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk7eA4gVDno
Zuck bought Instagram and WhatsApp and they weren’t mistakes. His purchase of Oculus is similar.
I suspect the losses on VR will eventually be offset by AR and smart glasses.
He also bought giphy, onavo, parse, ctrl-labs, eyegroove, daytum, and like a dozen other companies, maybe more. Some of these are totally a waste (onavo and parse were shuttered relatively quickly, giphy cost almost a half billion and got basically no roi, etc). It’s more that you’re bound to hit a few zingers if you can just keep trying because you basically have an infinite money glitch.
Also ctrl-labs is neural interfaces. Creepy name for that right? Especially when fucking meta owns it. Yuck.
I suspect only creeps will buy his peep glasses for rapists and pedophiles. They should be banned and if they are not they should at least be like the apple ones, which are basically a gigantic sign that says “this person desperately wants to follow you and your child into the bathroom and videotape it. They want it so bad they spent $3200 and walk around with this stupid asshole shit strapped to their face”
They were at least in the same wheelhouse. Close enough to be seen as a threat to FB. Oculus was just a total shot in a new direction.
Communication would be the underlying theme.
Still wild to me that someone like Carmack was in all this. Like, how did he think this would turn out? I guess the salary must have been enormous.
Facebook would make considerably more money if he stayed out of the decision making processes and just let talented people do it. But ego is going to ego I guess.
Zuckerberg was paying for the Carmack name but thought he knew better.
Well obviously!
One of them is a celebrated, accomplished developer. And the other is Zuckerberg.
I remember watching that episode in the Silicon Valley series.
I do remember a youtube video on C programming language had comments arguing about whether Dennis Ritchie or Mark Zuckerberg is the better programmer.
how embarrassing to compare one of the absolute titans of computer science with some web dev lmao