Virtual Reality Pioneer John Carmack Is Leaving Meta

John Carmack, a pioneer of virtual reality technology, is leaving Meta after more than eight years at the company, according to an internal post reviewed by The New York Times.

In the post, which was written by Mr. Carmack, 52, the technologist criticized his employer. He said Meta, which is in the midst of transitioning from a social networking company to one focused on the immersive world of the metaverse, was operating at “half the effectiveness” and has “a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort.”

“It has been a struggle for me,” Mr. Carmack wrote in the post, which was published on an internal forum this week. “I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough.”

As the former chief technology officer of Oculus, the virtual reality company that Facebook bought for $2 billion in 2014, Mr. Carmack was one of the most influential voices leading the development of V.R. headsets. He stayed with Facebook after Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, decided to shift the company last year to focus on the metaverse and renamed Facebook as Meta.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/technology/virtual-reality-pioneer-is-leaving-meta.html