John Carmack leaves Meta, citing performance issues

John Carmack has announced that he is stepping down from his role as Executive VR Consultant at Meta. Carmack wrote a lengthy post on why he was leaving, mainly citing efficiency issues at the company. Carmack begins the post by saying, “Quest 2 is pretty much what I wanted to see from the start.” He lists all the reasons why he still believes in the product, but says both the company and the product are held back by one major problem: “efficiency.”

All of this could happen a little faster and better if other decisions are made, but we’ve built something very close to the right thing. The problem is our efficiency.

He went on to make a cheeky comment, comparing Meta’s efficiency to 5% GPU utilization in production. He had to edit the post to mention that it was just a poetic comparison as some people didn’t seem to get the point.

“We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we are constantly sabotaging ourselves and wasting effort,” he continued. “I think our organization is half as efficient as I would be happy. Some may scoff and say we’re fine, but others will laugh and say, ‘Half? Ah! I’m working at a quarter efficiency!”

For me, this was a difficult task. I have a top-notch voice, so it sounds like I should be able to get the ball rolling, but I’m obviously not convincing enough. A lot of the stuff I complain about ends up on my side when a year or two goes by and the evidence piles up, but I’ve never been able to kill stupid stuff before it does damage or sets direction and really makes a team stick to it . I think my influence on the periphery has been positive, but it has never been critical.

He acknowledged that he could have done more on his side as well, like moving to Menlo Park after the takeover and fighting more with management.

He concluded by saying he was “tired of fighting” and needed to focus on his startup. However, he believes VR can still benefit the world and no one is better placed to do so than Meta.