John Carmack is Leaving Meta

John Carmack, the prolific computer programmer and co-founder of id Software, known for his work on classic games such as Wolfenstein 3D and Quake, in addition to his contributions to virtual reality, announced today that he would be stepping down from his role at Meta.

Carmack joined Oculus back in 2013 as CTO before the company was acquired by Meta (then known as Facebook) in 2014. He would then reduce his role at the company just five years later with a new consulting CTO role to focus more on his new startup, Keen Technologies, where he’s focusing on artificial general intelligence.

“We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort,” Carmack said in a FB post detailing the reason for resigning from his position at Meta. “There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.”

Based on Carmack’s post and tweets, he seemed unhappy with the way things are currently going at Meta. Noting in one tweet that He had always been “pretty frustrated with how things get done at FB/Meta,” a company burning cash into its Reality Labs division as it prioritizes making software and VR headsets designed for the metaverse in mind.

Even before his departure, Carmack voiced his displeasure about the current direction Meta is going. Most recently, in October, following the Meta Connect event where he noted there was “a bunch that [he’s] grumpy about” regarding Meta’s current VR outings. He expressed frustrations with things such as the Quest 2, which he felt did not provide a good user experience due to frequent updates and not being a fan of the company’s latest (and expensive) VR headset, the Quest Pro.

Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.