> 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.
Carmack is an absolute genius and it would be madness to disregard anything he's spent any significant amount of time thinking about.
But let's be real, he isn't Tim Sweeny or Gabe Newell. As smart he is, I don't think he is even top 3 in the best business decision makers of his specific field of first person shooter game developers. His track record is that using his tremendous skill he caught one of the biggest waves, and he's been riding that out and catching smaller waves ever since. I don't even think he didn't see the larger subsequent waves that Sweeney and Newell saw, I think he just wasn't interested in them.
Was he interested in catching big waves for Facebook, or was he interested in pursuing his specific vision?
Doom kicked ass not because it was trying to catch big waves but because they followed their specific vision. Making shit tons of money is not everything.
Agree that Sweeney seems to be the better captain. And he left carmack in the dust with unreal.
Perhaps this is the point of criticizing 5% utilization of the gpu. Why not have 90% gpu utilization of a $400 headset? Which strategy is more likely to succeed in gaining more adoption?
>I have plenty of examples across multiple top-tier companies, of senior leadership who were smart, thoughtful, effective... and still reasonable and compassionate.
some hide it well, some haven't met a cutthroat enough politician/executive. Some may be smart or lucky enough to completely avoid the scene altogether and tend to their own farm peacefully. And then maybe 2 remaining groups are truly in sync and altruistic and overall seem to be interested in the betterment of their audience than profits.
I wouldn't bet on Meta being in the latter category tho. I hope carmack enjoys his farm, he's definitely earned it.
>I think it's simply that it's tough to move people, plain as that.
can't make a horse drink. In this case, it's probably more like you can't even lead the horse to water to begin with.
That's why culture fit is such a strong factor in success. you can't spend all day fighting and expect reasonable progress to be made.
For every example of smart, thoughtful, effective senior leadership there are 10 or 100 of the opposite sort. Most corporations are a living proof of Peter's principle, where senior management is a country club of old* people covering each other's incompetence.
* It is not about ageism, but about people that are in their 5 years before retirement and have zero motivation to do any work, keep skills in shape or give a damn. I worked with a lot of people that were more than decent in their careers, but dropped the ball completely in the last 5 to 10 years before retirement with huge negative impact for their employers. How can this happen? In big companies the inertia covers for these people.
That honestly sounds like a lot of tech "gurus" too, like Mudge and Carmack. These people made a name for themselves with incredible skill as an IC (usually in a hot field, too), and never made the transition beyond that level, towards being leaders with the ability to grasp the full picture.
There is a completely different set of skills involved. In fact, the best wide-area tech leads I met at Google were not great engineers, but they were very good at inspiring other engineers.
I think this is where Steve Jobs actually deserves a lot of credit, and honestly Elon Musk too.
While I agree with the idea, I think John Carmack illustrated he was capable as more than an IC but also a team leader for several projects while at Id.
So, probably a very able leader of a small-ish team. Which is OK and can still lead to huge impact and I wish he'd stayed in that zone in anything he was doing (probably started that way at Occulus?).
Some of us can't acquire (or haven't acquired yet) the skillset and daily gumption of leading bigger orgs and I guess it's fine.
I hope his next endeavour gets him back to a manageable high-impact I-decide-most-things job. I just want to see what a happy and free Carmack can still do.
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.