Carmack has a good resume, but its entirely possible he already peaked. The average engineers career track is something like this:
Young and creative, new ideas but lacks the skills to achieve them which evolves into young, and has refined ideas plus now has some skills which then evolves into older, refined skills, and refined existing ideas. When an engineer is making things, this is his peak. Ending with skills are obsolete, and refined ideas are obsolete
At the end, engineers go in 3 directions. They find a niche supporting the technology of their peak, they try to reinvent themselves, but very typically are inferior to their younger counterparts. Or three they leverage the larger concepts of their experience and manage their younger counterparts.
Carmack was notable because he was banging out great code when he still had edgy ideas. I don't know how his ideas have evolved since then, and he may still be a shining diamond. Its possible. But it would be very noteworthy if someone had the capability to change an industry twice.
"But it would be very noteworthy if someone had the capability to change an industry twice." - VR is a part of his original vision, it's just that hardware was not ready.
Even if he peaked as a coder he is still invaluable as an expert in graphics and gamedev. Especially with low-level coding around those areas. A great attractor of future tech talent to the company as well I guess.
He also improves the image of the company in the eyes of hardcore gamers and geeks: 'OK, they sold to Facebook, but Carmack is still there and he is not a sell-out, so maybe it will turn out OK.'
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 14.2 ms ] threadCarmack has a good resume, but its entirely possible he already peaked. The average engineers career track is something like this:
Young and creative, new ideas but lacks the skills to achieve them which evolves into young, and has refined ideas plus now has some skills which then evolves into older, refined skills, and refined existing ideas. When an engineer is making things, this is his peak. Ending with skills are obsolete, and refined ideas are obsolete
At the end, engineers go in 3 directions. They find a niche supporting the technology of their peak, they try to reinvent themselves, but very typically are inferior to their younger counterparts. Or three they leverage the larger concepts of their experience and manage their younger counterparts.
Carmack was notable because he was banging out great code when he still had edgy ideas. I don't know how his ideas have evolved since then, and he may still be a shining diamond. Its possible. But it would be very noteworthy if someone had the capability to change an industry twice.
Even if he peaked as a coder he is still invaluable as an expert in graphics and gamedev. Especially with low-level coding around those areas. A great attractor of future tech talent to the company as well I guess.
He also improves the image of the company in the eyes of hardcore gamers and geeks: 'OK, they sold to Facebook, but Carmack is still there and he is not a sell-out, so maybe it will turn out OK.'
Also, lest we forget, Carmack’s greatest asset is his rare combination of brilliance and strong work ethic.
You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who knows more about the rot-gut work of displaying 3d spaces in realtime on cheap hardware.