John Carmack, one of the pioneers of virtual reality who joined Meta* after buying Oculus for $2 billion, has left the company. He confirmed his departure on social media, posting an explanation of his decision.
John wrote that this is the end of his decade in VR. He praised the Quest 2, calling it the VR device he wanted to see from the start, noting the internal motion detection, PC streaming, cost, and display resolution. But he added that it could have happened sooner if other decisions had been made.
Carmack’s main problem with Meta was efficiency, or rather its very low level.
We have an absurd amount of people and resources, but we are constantly engaged in self-sabotage and wasted effort. There’s no point in embellishing: I think the company is working at half of its possible efficiency.
As one of the leaders, Carmack says he thinks he can influence the pace, but he wasn’t convincing enough.
I didn’t deal with stupid things before they hurt, or set a direction for the team to go.
Carmack explained that he is tired of this battle, but still believes in the value of VR for people around the world and believes Meta is in a great position to realize its potential.
In August, Carmack told Lex Friedman’s podcast that he felt sick after learning of the $10 billion spent on VR and AR, how absurdly such a large amount of money had been used.
* On March 21, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow recognized the company Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) as extremist and banned its activities in Russia
