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John Carmack's arguments against building a custom XR OS at Meta

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521 points OlympicMarmoto | 3 comments | 29 Aug 25 16:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.722s | source
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lukev ◴[29 Aug 25 17:53 UTC] No.45067307[source]▶
This is completely right from a product point of view, which is Carmack's argument.

But I have wondered why one of these companies with billions of dollars to burn hasn't tried to create something new as a strategic initiative. Yes, there wouldn't be any ROI for years, and yes, the first several products on the platform would probably be better off on something more traditional.

But the long term value could potentially be astronomical.

Just another case of quarterly-report-driven decision making, I suppose. Sigh.

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1. Aurornis ◴[29 Aug 25 21:27 UTC] No.45069591[source]▶
> But I have wondered why one of these companies with billions of dollars to burn hasn't tried to create something new as a strategic initiative.

See Google's Fuschia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system)

> But the long term value could potentially be astronomical.

Such as what?

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2. crote ◴[29 Aug 25 21:59 UTC] No.45069913[source]▶
> Such as what?

Historically? The internet, the concept of a graphical user interface, the mouse, the smartphone, the LCD display, the laser printer...

It's about clever people trying weird stuff, and occasionally ending up with a world-changing idea. Asking for examples of to-be-discovered innovations is, by definition, an impossibility.

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3. const_cast ◴[29 Aug 25 22:23 UTC] No.45070087[source]▶
Companies are risk averse, ask DARPA to do it.