Legendary programmer John Carmack is leaving Meta, nearly a decade after he joined Oculus, the VR company that became part of the Facebook ecosystem after its acquisition back in 2014. The man, renowned for being the co-creator of the Doom IP, published his departure in full on his Facebook account, after it was leaked to the press.
In his Facebook post, Carmack states that his reason for resigning as an executive consultant for VR at Meta was due to what he says was an “inefficiency” that seemed to prevent the team from making headway or gains in the medium.
“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. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!””
Carmack served as the CTO of Oculus and stayed on after the company owned by Palmer Luckey was purchased for a sum of US$2 billion (~RM8.84 billion) back in 2014. Throughout his tenure, the Doom co-creator was a voice that championed the development of the VR medium, as well as the development of their headsets.
At the same time, Carmack was also Meta’s most vicious critics when it came to the subject of VR. During a podcast interview earlier in the year, he blamed Meta’s US$10 billion (~RM4.42 billion) loss on the slack-jawed and half-hearted implementation of the Metaverse and other initiatives that made him “sick to the stomach”. In addition, he also says that bureaucracy and concerns about diversity and privacy were also reasons why the VR division couldn’t flourish.
In leaving, Carmack’s final words to Meta were simply “Make better decision and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!”.
