id Software co-founder and Doom co-creator John Carmack has announced his departure from Meta, where he oversaw virtual reality hardware development for nearly a decade. Mr. Carmack attributed his decision to the fact that he was tired of fighting inefficiency and "self-sabotage" in the company.

The expert who served as CTO and Executive Advisor bluntly stated that he was "offended" by the company, which he compared to a video card with a 5% utilization rate. “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we are constantly self-sabotaging and wasting effort. It's impossible to embellish this. I think our organization works at half the efficiency that would make me happy,” Carmack explained his position. In order to somehow influence the overall direction of Meta's development, he had to constantly "fight", but, despite the high position, he could not be convincing enough for leadership and, as a result, he simply got tired of this struggle.

Disregarding basic ethical corporate standards, Carmack did not hide the internal contradictions in the company even during his speech at the Meta Connect event. He said he tried to promote the development of a lightweight and inexpensive virtual reality headset that would weigh 250g and cost $250, but instead, the $1,500 Quest Pro, which was packed with features, was born. Carmack spoke warmly about the Meta Quest 2, but admitted that the device is inconvenient to use - the software part needs a radical reworking. The top executive was also wary of Facebook's Meta rebranding and warned that the company should be wary of "architectural astronauts," useless executives waving their hands instead of building viable products that serve customers.

In an August interview with one of the podcasts, Carmack bluntly stated that he was "sick" from Meta's monthly spending of almost $ 1 billion on virtual reality technologies - this company does nothing more than demonstrate its commitment to the approved idea. Google under similar conditions cancels such projects, and Meta, on the contrary, spends more and more.

John Carmack left id Software, to which he devoted 22 years, and moved to Oculus in 2013. While at Oculus (later Facebook), he helped develop standalone headsets — in 2018, he named the original Quest as a potential competitor to the Nintendo Switch console. And in 2019, he was demoted - he became not a technical director, but a consulting technical director. His departure from Meta cuts off one of the company's last lines of communication with the "old guard" who were involved in the development of Oculus headsets long before the Facebook takeover.