John Carmack resigned from his leadership role at Meta Platforms Inc’s virtual reality (VR) unit, citing frustration with its slow progress and disagreements over strategy with company founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg.
The games industry veteran said in his resignation note that he had long been frustrated by the poor operational efficiency of Meta’s VR endeavor, which he never felt adequately able to influence in the right direction.
Carmack, 52, joined VR developer Oculus in 2013 ahead of its acquisition by Meta — then still known as Facebook — in 2014. Having started at Oculus as chief technology officer, he became an executive consultant for VR at Meta.
Photo: Reuters
Zuckerberg renamed the company Meta to signal its commitment to developing a “metaverse” of virtual 3D experiences.
“I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things,” Carmack said in the note. “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.”
The games industry veteran — who founded id Software, which produced classic first-person shooter games Quake and Doom, and helped usher in 3D graphics for PC video games — wrote on Twitter that he found a “notable gap” in strategic thinking between himself and Zuckerberg.
He believes “everything necessary for spectacular success is right there, but it doesn’t get put together effectively,” he said.
Meta is spending billions of US dollars each year on its metaverse and VR project, and its Meta Quest 2 is widely regarded as the best VR headset on the market.
The company said in October that the operating losses of the Reality Labs unit that houses the venture would grow significantly next year, which was not welcomed by investors looking for more cost discipline from tech companies.
“It is impossible to overstate the impact you’ve had on our work and the industry as a whole,” Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth said of Carmack.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS