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

> They also got me reported to HR by the manager of the XROS effort for supposedly making his team members feel bad

I've only seen John Carmack's public interactions, but they've all been professional and kind.

It's depressing to imagine HR getting involved because someone's feelings had been hurt by an objective discussion from a person like John Carmack.

I'm having flashbacks to the times in my career when coworkers tried to weaponize HR to push their agenda. Every effort was eventually dismissed by HR, but there is a chilling effect on everyone when you realize that someone at the company is trying to put your job at stake because they didn't like something you said. The next time around, the people targeted are much more hesitant to speak up.

John can be quite blunt and harsh in person, from everyone I know who’s interacted with him.

If he doesn’t believe in something, he can sometimes be over critical and it’s hard to push back in that kind of power imbalance.

Which makes sense when you are one of 3 developers at ID software. There's absolutely no room for waste.

This is Meta. Let the kids build their operating system ffs. Is he now more concerned with protecting shareholder value? Who cares.

Meta's AR/VR division has burned a huge amount of money and years of time, with relatively little to show for it. Now it seems to be on the verge of being cancelled or slashed back, and in response people are saying that this proves VR, something Carmack champions, is commercially untenable or even that Carmack himself is partly responsible for the failed initiative. I don't even entirely agree with him on the question of whether anyone should try developing a new OS, but he's been proven absolutely right that there was no room for him to be that complacent about the use of Meta's resources.