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John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


John Carmack is a legendary programmer, co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer of many revolutionary video games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the Commander Keen series. He is also the founder of Armadillo Aerospace, and for many years the CTO of Oculus VR.

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:57 - Programming languages
33:01 - Modern programming
43:03 - Day in the life
50:53 - Hard work
54:06 - Pizza and Diet Coke
56:50 - Setup
1:22:08 - id Software
1:54:58 - Commander Keen
2:01:44 - Hacker ethic
2:09:24 - Wolfenstein 3D
2:29:21 - Doom
2:43:42 - Quake
3:08:02 - John Romero
3:15:49 - Metaverse
3:44:11 - Elon Musk
3:50:06 - Mars
3:59:09 - Nuclear energy
4:02:47 - AGI
4:49:59 - Andrej Karpathy
4:52:57 - Martial arts
5:01:57 - Advice for young people
5:10:57 - Meaning of life
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
May I recommend the book Masters of DOOM to those interested in the lifes and developments of both the videogame Johns.

He's really not any kind of intellectual nor claims to be one.
Joe Rogan GIF
 

VN1X

Banned
Completely disagree.
It speaks volumes about someone's qualities as speaker if he can keep an audience hooked by just sitting in a chair and talk for an hour - without any accompanying slides or other "attention boosters".
That's fair enough but as someone who listens to podcasts daily I can name many others that have a much more pleasant manner of speaking. Anyway, like I said the man is arguably one of the founders of the entire industry so more power to him!
 

Danknugz

Member
got through about 2 hours so far and it was pretty exhausting. his energy levels are off the charts. i could hang and understand most of what he was talking about, but i would hate to interview him and sound like such a dumbass with some generic responses after he goes off for another 15 minutes on some technical wizardry. (not that it was the case in this interview)
 
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Tieno

Member
got through about 2 hours so far and it was pretty exhausting. his energy levels are off the charts. i could hang and understand most of what he was talking about, but i would hate to interview him and sound like such a dumbass with some generic responses after he goes off for another 15 minutes on some technical wizardry. (not that it was the case in this interview)
It's amazing. I'm a software developer myself and he has a lot of traits I wish to model myself. He's like the final form of a computer programmer, in the best way.

(I hope now someone doesn't reply with how Carmack is actually a dick in real life)
 

I Master l

Banned
Listened to him on Joe Rogan podcast, He is genius at what he's doing but i find
him kinda boring and narrow minded person
 

FireFly

Member
That's fair enough but as someone who listens to podcasts daily I can name many others that have a much more pleasant manner of speaking. Anyway, like I said the man is arguably one of the founders of the entire industry so more power to him!
His speaking voice is kind of robotic, but he is capable of unravelling his thought process on a given subject in a way that is ridiculously well structured and insightful. It's like you are getting a "planned" talk in continuous stream of consciousness as he seamlessly switches from topic to topic, without repeating himself. Elon Musk is on the same level, but often needs to take time to compose himself before speaking.

I don't think I could talk about any technical topic in an unplanned way like Carmack does. I think that comes from understanding the "whole stack" on a fundamental level, from hardware operations to compilers to programming languages to high level design principles. Most people spend their careers working at given layer of abstraction, but Carmack understands all the layers and how they fit together.
 

twilo99

Member
Gotta respect Carmack. Will listen during work tomorrow.

A true pioneer.

if you enjoy any FPS games today, its in large part thanks to him and his team at id software. We would've gotten here eventually anyway, but it might look different, and it would've taken longer.

I still think Quake was their biggest breakthrough from technological standpoint.
 
Halfway through this podcast. This man is a living legend. He's incredibly smart and he's able to explain the incredibly smart things he does in a way that even a simpleton like me can understand. Excited the hear the rest of the episode where, presumably, they get into VR & AGI.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
I listened to this while grinding my ARR relic weapon in FF14. It's a very interesting listen, thanks for sharing.
 
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