--- title: "John Carmack Quits Job Building Metaverse, Blasts Facebook" description: "John Carmack has quit his advisory position at Meta — and took to the social network to blast his now-ex-boss on his way out the door. " date: "2022-12-19" modified: "2022-12-19" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/john-carmack-quits-facebook" categories: - "Future Society" - "Metaverse" - "Virtual Reality" tags: - "facebook" - "mark zuckerberg" - "metaverse" - "the digest" --- # John Carmack Quits Job Building Metaverse, Blasts Facebook ![John Carmack has quit his advisory position at Meta — and took to the social network to blast his now-ex-boss on his way out the door. ]() *\Image: Gabrielle Lurie via Getty / Futurism\* ## Doom and Gloom Facebook VR leader — and Doom creator — John Carmack has quit his advisory position at the company now known as Meta, and took to the social network to unsparingly explain his departure. In a [Facebook post](), Carmack publicly shared his resignation email, which he said he decided to post after it had been partially leaked to the press. "This is the end of my decade in VR," the gaming pioneer's note began. "I have mixed feelings." ## Persuasion In the letter, Carmack charged the company with "operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy," an apparent jab at the leadership of founder [Mark Zuckerberg](), whose bullheaded turn towards creating a metaverse has drawn criticism from [many quarters](), including [Carmack in the past](). Carmack went on to say that in his 10 years at Facebook, he was not able to be as "persuasive" as he wished — a situation he said was "admittedly self-inflicted" because he refused to move from Dallas to the San Francisco Bay Area after the company [acquired the VR headset maker Oculus](). "I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership," Carmack continued, again seeming to reference Zuckerberg and his acolytes, "but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway." Overall, the letter from the part-time Meta advisor is as full of self-reflection as it is frustration — the most anyone could ask for from someone as big a deal as Carmack as he admits to struggling with a sense of failure from within and without. **More on Facebook, er, Meta:** [*Totalitarian Zuckerberg Bans Employees From Discussing Guns, Vaccines, Abortion*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()