He must be tempted to join. I think there are few places in the world where one could make a bigger impact as an engineer. He already has experience in rocketry. He's located in Texas. And I bet he'd be interested in the stuff Tesla's doing with AI too.
> I did kind of volunteer to help them fix what I consider very poor user interface performance on the older model S (that I drive). Their engineers have been sharing data with me.
That sounds like kinda sorta starting to join...
Working with Tesla on AI actually sounds more like what he's been working on recently... at least if he can convince them to give him a lot of flexibility on what exactly he works on.
The big problem is that Carmack is an elite software engineer, and he's not at that same tier in rocketry/aerospace despite being good at it. Elite vs good. Which is to say, he'd have to take a back seat at SpaceX (which is running at full speed; Carmack would have to try to get back up to speed in aerospace just to contribute, difficult by itself). His ability to contribute beyond that of other industry specific talent is very questionable, and there are far better people - at rocketry/aerospace - working there than him. Carmack knows that without question. It simply doesn't make sense for him to spend his time doing that; it's not the best use of his time given that SpaceX already exists (vs trying to start what SpaceX has become, in his Armadillo effort).
It's the equivalent of Michael Jordan spending the remainder of his athletic career trying to play baseball. Sure, he could have done that. If the White Sox had allowed him on the team (ignoring the strike for a moment), more than likely all he would have been doing is taking the job of someone better at playing professional baseball than him; while his greatest ability by far rests in his basketball prowess.
Carmack already did a deep run at aerospace. He has N time left. Where can he combo make the greatest impact and enjoy the work. I'd guess that's something close to the equation, it seems to be for most people in that position/stage of life. Working at SpaceX is unlikely to be that place all things considered. What might have happened if Carmack had joined in the early days instead of doing Armadillo is an interesting thought (it's hard to see how the SpaceX outcome could be much better than it has been though, realistically).
> The big problem is that Carmack is an elite software engineer, and he's not at that same tier in rocketry/aerospace despite being good at it. Elite vs good. Which is to say, he'd have to take a back seat at SpaceX (which is running at full speed; Carmack would have to try to get back up to speed in aerospace just to contribute, difficult by itself). His ability to contribute beyond that of other industry specific talent is very questionable, and there are far better people - at rocketry/aerospace - working there than him.
According to the book 'Liftoff' about the genesis of SpaceX. This does not accurately reflect how they hire. Domain knowledge and skill is part of the equation, especially for the leadership team. But they'll also pick up anyone with a proven ability of solving difficult engineering problems even from completely different disciplines.
SpaceX is doing things that haven't been done before anywhere, thus the domain experience can only take you so far...
> It's the equivalent of Michael Jordan spending the remainder of his athletic career trying to play baseball
Sure, but that could just as easily describe Carmack's current efforts in AGI (and I seem to recall that he even tweeted something to that effect himself, though I can't find it now). Him achieving AGI as a solo researcher seems less likely than him making some big technical contributions to SpaceX, or Tesla AI.
Elon is working on AI too, and Dojo is one of the most exciting things in the field if you ask me. Carmack has always been good at leveraging hardware to do amazing things on the graphics side, and AI hardware is not so dissimilar to graphics hardware.
The two previous tweets that triggered this are also interesting:
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1423053681520414724
> A troll was trying to get a rise out of me yesterday, suggesting that I should somehow feel bad about Elon's success after my failed aerospace venture. I can't overstate how alien that thought is to me -- my joy at these things being built is deep.
Carmack has been sold by SpaceX right from the start.
Musk and Carmack are both rocket nuts. Carmack ran a rocket company: Armadillo Aerospace, mostly as a hobby. From engineer to engineer, Carmack has a lot of respect for Musk, and Musk tried to offer Carmack a job at SpaceX, as in "stop playing with your toys, we have serious rockets here".
I concur and I’m very vocal about the vapor ware that Tesla spews from time to time. SpaceX has delivered and I watched in complete awe when two rockets touched down near simultaneously a year or so ago.
I still think the whole passenger part of spacex might be a pipe dream but who knows.
I just look at where Tesla started, and where it is today. How they revolutionized electric cars during a time when the ICE industry was against them in order to protect the status quo. I wonder how many companies would be "all in" on electric right now had Tesla not existed and forced them to. Would the Mustang "Mach E" exist? Would Ford be changing their most profitable and popular line, the F-150 Truck, if there wasn't a Tesla? Would Porsche be making electric cars if Tesla cars 1/3 the price weren't wiping the floor with them in track races, handily embarrassing them? They accomplished this even as the car industry was able to "swing" politicians to ban "Tesla dealerships" which is a huge impediment. Do you know of any Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, GMC, or Porsche "dealerships" that don't have physical storefronts? They persevered and basically got around that by building A+ products which sold themselves on reputation and performance alone. I guess you can concentrate on "vaporware" and ignore the actual industry shake-up that they forced upon the "establishment" (existing ICE companies) and have done more concretely than any other company I can think of in terms of taking an existing problem (car pollution) and turning it around.
IIR, Carmack spent a lot of his own money on Armadillo Aerospace and most of the people who worked on it were volunteers. They had many ideas including custom designed rocket engines and self contained composable pieces that could be built into large systems.
It was very up Musk's "first principles" alley, but wildly underestimated the capital needed to be successful.
He was years ahead of the curve [0] on mobile-first VR. By that I don't mean "stick a phone in Google Carboad," but truly self-contained and portable VR built on mobile chipsets. The success of the Quest and Quest 2 is proof of that, especially in the context of years of slow PC-only VR user growth.
Other people don't know all the things you do and vice versa. I would bet that less than half of the monthly active users on HN know who John Carmack is.
> I really thought they had a chance when armadillo won that NASA moonlander prize.
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
I'd really wish John would put fingers to the keyboard and write the history of Armadillo Aerospace. From buying a peroxide engine from Juan Lozano (?) to decision not to continue, even with that grand CNC behemoth as a birthday gift.
You think John Carmack, a legendary engineer who had his own aerospace company and has likely toured others, is wrong that it's extremely impressive? Which would be relative to others.
It's funny that the Tesla engineers are sharing data with him, since they are suing repair shops that repair Teslas. Time for class action lawsuit, methinks.
Readit News
> I did kind of volunteer to help them fix what I consider very poor user interface performance on the older model S (that I drive). Their engineers have been sharing data with me.
That sounds like kinda sorta starting to join...
Working with Tesla on AI actually sounds more like what he's been working on recently... at least if he can convince them to give him a lot of flexibility on what exactly he works on.
It's the equivalent of Michael Jordan spending the remainder of his athletic career trying to play baseball. Sure, he could have done that. If the White Sox had allowed him on the team (ignoring the strike for a moment), more than likely all he would have been doing is taking the job of someone better at playing professional baseball than him; while his greatest ability by far rests in his basketball prowess.
Carmack already did a deep run at aerospace. He has N time left. Where can he combo make the greatest impact and enjoy the work. I'd guess that's something close to the equation, it seems to be for most people in that position/stage of life. Working at SpaceX is unlikely to be that place all things considered. What might have happened if Carmack had joined in the early days instead of doing Armadillo is an interesting thought (it's hard to see how the SpaceX outcome could be much better than it has been though, realistically).
According to the book 'Liftoff' about the genesis of SpaceX. This does not accurately reflect how they hire. Domain knowledge and skill is part of the equation, especially for the leadership team. But they'll also pick up anyone with a proven ability of solving difficult engineering problems even from completely different disciplines.
SpaceX is doing things that haven't been done before anywhere, thus the domain experience can only take you so far...
Sure, but that could just as easily describe Carmack's current efforts in AGI (and I seem to recall that he even tweeted something to that effect himself, though I can't find it now). Him achieving AGI as a solo researcher seems less likely than him making some big technical contributions to SpaceX, or Tesla AI.
Edit: I think I was recalling this tweet: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1411010796285480965
The impact of AGI is far greater than rockets, too.
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1423053681520414724 > A troll was trying to get a rise out of me yesterday, suggesting that I should somehow feel bad about Elon's success after my failed aerospace venture. I can't overstate how alien that thought is to me -- my joy at these things being built is deep.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1423162437034037248 > It would be an honor to have you visit Starbase
That's an amazing way to respond to a troll.
Musk and Carmack are both rocket nuts. Carmack ran a rocket company: Armadillo Aerospace, mostly as a hobby. From engineer to engineer, Carmack has a lot of respect for Musk, and Musk tried to offer Carmack a job at SpaceX, as in "stop playing with your toys, we have serious rockets here".
I still think the whole passenger part of spacex might be a pipe dream but who knows.
Elon Musk speaks quite aspirationally and optimistically from time to time, for both Tesla and SpaceX.
> SpaceX has delivered
They sure have! Tesla has also delivered over 1.7 million cars. They're on track to deliver about 750k cars in 2021 alone.
Dead Comment
Deleted Comment
It was very up Musk's "first principles" alley, but wildly underestimated the capital needed to be successful.
At least, I think that's how the history went. I could be wrong.
But seriously, is there a better title to give him for that part of his work?
[0] https://venturebeat.com/2016/10/07/oculus-john-carmack-argue...
In any case, it's funny he's still using the I'd handle on twitter. Whatever happened to that lawsuit
Finally somewhat on topic: I really thought they had a chance when armadillo won that NASA moonlander prize.
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
I'd really wish John would put fingers to the keyboard and write the history of Armadillo Aerospace. From buying a peroxide engine from Juan Lozano (?) to decision not to continue, even with that grand CNC behemoth as a birthday gift.