Meta VR Project Director John Carmack Leaves His Post: ‘I’m Tired of Arguing’

john carmac resigned from Meta Platforms, a partnership created last year by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in a letter Friday expressing his frustration when he started as an executive consultant in virtual reality.

“There is nothing sugarcoated, I believe our organization is operating half as effectively as would make me happy,” Carmack wrote in the letter, which he shared on Facebook.

“Some may scoff and say we’re doing it right, but others will laugh and say, ‘Half? Say oh! I’m in an efficiency room! I got tired of fighting‘” he assured.

Responding to a question about Carmack’s resignation and comments, Meta directed the Associated Press on Saturday to a tweet from its chief technology officer and head of its reality labs, Andrew Bosworth. “It’s impossible to overstate the impact has had on our work and the industry at large,” Bosworth wrote in his tweet of gratitude to Carmack.

Critical moment

Carmack’s departure comes as Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, battled the widespread perception that he was wasting billions of dollars trying to set up the Menlo Park, California-based company in the “metaverse.” with avatars of real people.

As losses from the metaverse have increased, Facebook and affiliate services such as Instagram they suffered a decline in the advertising that generates the bulk of the company’s revenue.

The decline was triggered by a combination of recession fears, tougher competition from other social media services like TikTok, and privacy controls on the Apple iPhones which made it difficult to track people’s interests to help sell ads.

Those challenges have caused Meta shares to lose nearly two-thirds of their value so far this year, wiping them out $575 billion in shareholder wealth.

Carmack, key piece

Though Carmack had only worked part-time on Meta, the dismay he expressed likely amplifies the questions raised about Zuckerberg’s efforts to become as dominant in VR as Facebook has been in social media since the service’s inception. nearly 20 years ago while attending Harvard University.

Zuckerberg began seriously exploring VR in 2014 with Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of headset maker Oculus. At the time, Carmack was the CTO of Eye and later joined Facebook after the deal closed. Before joining Oculus, Carmack was best known as the co-creator of the video game Doom.

Federal regulators are now trying to limit Zuckerberg’s influence on virtual reality by blocking his bid to purchase Within Unlimited, which creates a fitness app designed for the metaverse.

Carmack testified earlier this week in a lawsuit pitting the Federal Trade Commission against Meta over the fate of the deal. Zuckerberg is expected to testify at some point in the trial, which he is expected to resume. Monday in San JoseCalifornia.

Despite his frustration with how things turned out in Meta, Carmack praised its latest VR headset, the Quest 2, in his resignation letter. He described the headset as “almost exactly what I wanted to see from the very beginning” of his sent to Oculus.

“It’s a success and the successful products make the world a better place,” Carmack said of Quest 2. “Everything could have happened a little faster and worked out better if different decisions had been made, but we built something close enough to the right.”