John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- 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. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
John's Twitter: / id_aa_carmack
Books mentioned:
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: amzn.to/3SkNZER
Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D: amzn.to/3QlOqg8
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: lexfridman.com/podcast
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Spotify: spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast
Clips playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
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
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Here are the timestamps. Please check out our sponsors to support this podcast.
0:00 - Introduction & sponsor mentions:
- InsideTracker: insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off
- Indeed: indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit
- Blinkist: blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium
- Eight Sleep: www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings
- Athletic Greens: athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil
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
John is just a legend
Carmack is one of my hereoes
Cool stuff! You got the legend himself! :D
its cool that he went into looking at agi but still wish he had not left id would be cool to see what new engine designs he would be working on now
@@sinistan1002 The problem with engines today is that the codebase is so large that even someone like Carmack can only do so much -- it's not like in the 90s where virtually all of the code was his. Unreal Engine 4's source code is a few orders of magnitude larger than Doom3, IIRC. I think Carmack is better in smaller teams and projects where he's not stuck in meetings functioning as a CTO having to manage other people. In some alternate universe my wish was for Carmack to become a partner with Notch at Mojang or perhaps go to Valve.
I wish John Carmack would make a YT channel where he would just ramble about what's on his mind once a week
I wish John Carmack would make new games
I don't think he's that kind of person.
@@user-stanrbm Don't we all 🙂
@@zydian_ No, and he also doesn't really care about money so the fact that he would have thousands of Patreons if he started a channel probably doesn't mean much to him either. But we can still hope 🤞
I agree.
“You can’t learn everything, but you have to convince yourself that you can learn anything…” - John Carmack
in fact You can learn a lot... i hope to never stop inner development!
Such a powerful thought, so well expressed
Fake it till you make it?
@@badcornflakes6374 i guess so.
5:07:08
John Carmack has an uncanny ability to talk about complicated things in simple ways that make me feel like I'm keeping up with him, even though he's WAY ahead.
After about 12+ years in the IT industry, I've learned that the truly top level guys are able to break down stuff in such a a way that even a junior can understand them.
I never feel like I'm keeping up with him lol
hell yeah. just when i feel lost he reigns it in and i go....OOOH THATS WHAT IT IS. most fo the time.. course im just an ex ac/heat guy and 10 year or so communications guy
Him and Richard Feynman give me that feeling.
The depth of understanding someone has on a topic is demonstrated by how simply they can put things on that topic; John is truly a beast
John Carmack has an anti-depressive effect on me. Just... I'm a programmer working on a, well, less than super interesting project for a corporation, but just hearing him talk makes me excited to do my work as well and as efficiently as I can and strive to learn something new every day in the process. The incredible stuff is right here in our local environment if we just dive in and get to work!
My thoughts exactly. His enthusiasm and approach is infectious.
I was about to say the same thing. No matter how bad the world gets, hearing John Carmack always puts me in a better mood. It's like he always comes off in a great mood and its infectious.
Fax
He is hugely inspiring
im in the same boat. But listening to this convo made me start doing some more advanced stuff with React that most people dont typically do. I improved our React Native code base significantly and removed around 1800 lines of code just by exploring and doing things better and simpler.
5 hours of John Carmack. Time to get the popcorn, bois!
Amazing that in the 90s as a teenager learning programming I would maybe just see a picture of him and possibly a news story here and there, but in 2022 I can watch a 1 hour podcast on demand on a handheld device while I walk outside, what a difference from back then
And the weed.
Starting it early 🍿what a treat as a programmer ive always been curious to know more about Mr Carmack
Pizza and Diet Coke
Oh yaaaa
A double whammy of "Oh shit, John Carmack!" then "Holy shit, 5 hours?!"
Glad everyone seems to have the same reaction, this will be awesome!
+1
Some idiot on twitter had the opposite reaction but he got ratioed hard.
I saw the time and I had to shout in joy
Same double reaction. lol.
I was on discord with friend and he can confirm I said exactly that out loud haha
“At Meta… we have JavaScript here and there, then we have C++ for real work”
~The greatest programmer who ever lived.
Did he say that in this video? What timestamp?
@@evooff18:39
Tbh they could have probably gone with Rust these days, it's just safer and more fun.
@@DarkSwordsman I mean they could replace C with Rust, it's not a big problem for generalist programmers to move to another language as the concepts and experiences are portable. This would be more of a problem for JS devs than C devs due to them living in quite a world of their own and while you're right that there's a lot more JS devs than anything else, you can still find a lot of generalists. As for the languages, JS and Rust operate in quite different environments with different purposes. React is a JS library for rendering web apps with JIT compilation, while Rust is for lower level programming that's precompiled into binaries. Facebook's involvement in React doesn't really matter anymore, it's open source and has long been decoupled from the inner politics of Facebook. More to the point you wouldn't and more like couldn't even write the kind of low level platform code in JavaScript that you would write in Rust.
Usually web platforms are used for user-facing frontends or human interfaces (eg. SpaceX/Tesla using React apps in ther onboard UIs and Meta probably used it similarly in the Oculus stack) - that's something they do extremely well. The desktop Oculus Quest app is probably a React web app since that's the simplest and most consistent multiplatform solution you have today. That would be a major pain doing in C or Rust. Rust would then be used for either terminal apps or background workloads and processes. Sure you could still write a Rust-linked UI with GTK/QT or else, but you'd see less options and more problems compared to web. As for apps outside of the web, NodeJS can't really thread very well aside workers, it tends to be slower compared to C/Rust and it doesn't really reach into the bare metal access you have in Rust by default. To turn it around, the only way Rust could then be used to do anything in the browser is by compiling it to WASM and still using HTML/JS for the UI. You can't draw a website with WASM, it doesn't have access to the DOM APIs. Well, you could theoretically render it to a canvas but that would be a giant pile of pointless effort.
So in a platform the size and complexity of Oculus/Meta VR, you'll inevitably end up with layered stacks written with different things to do different things, there's no universally applicable language that has the abstractions to do it all.
AHAHAHAHA
Can you guys do another 5 hours? I've listened to this video several times now and seriously want more
I feel you
Really wasn't expecting you Allan.
@@rano12321 cheers man big fan of lex and Carmack, I actually got to meet John Carmack and presents on a panel on stage with him in Texas at the industry. Giants events in 2011, which was a lot of fun and doom and Wolfenstein pretty much started my career so I’ve been obsessed with id Software my tire life.
@@AllanMcKay Holy shit dude. That's awesome. I certainly didn't expect to get a reply from you, you're an absolute legend man. A lot of people look upto your work. Cheers man. Hopefully someday I'd get to meet you and John as well haha.
I agree!
I visited iD Software in their black Dallas cube a few times (during Quake development), the couple of hours I spent discussing software with John Carmack is in hindsight one of the most memorable events of my programming career. This was of course mostly a one-way transfer of knowledge but I'm glad that I made enough of an impression that John later suggested that I could have been the author of the InvSqrt() hack.
I had in fact handled more or less the same problem in order to double the speed of a computational fluid chemistry simulator, but that particular way to solve it wasn't my idea.
It's crazy that you can ask John Carmack about what seems like any random topic, and he will just start talking about it in the most coherent way for hours.
Much like Jordan Peterson. Very articulate.
If you look into the psychology of intelligence it seems that what separates a genius from those who are merely very intelligent is the breadth of knowledge, I think it's sort of like language or mathematics, once you know all the components and the rules that govern their interactions you are capable of describing pretty much anything.
Part of it is experience. He's given lots of talks and probably touched on many of these subjects.
@@stevencasteelassistantgene5263 Major difference being that John Carmack actually knows what he's talking about!
@@beanieteamie7435 seems political. the weird cartoon profile picture confirms
Enjoyed every second of this one. I’m blown away by Cormack’s ability to focus and relay thoughts so clearly for over 5 hours without seeming to blink an eye. Amazing powers of concentration and really inspiring too
Yeah. That is something else. I sure didn't watch the video all the way through. I end up splitting it into 3 parts.
Is he on medication? Maybe adderall?
Nah, he just already cracked AGI and replaced himself with the beta version for the lulz.
@@garden0fstone736 Crazy to imagine it, but there are people out there who get given fully working, issue-free brains.
@@trejkaz I wouldn’t know
Wolf, doom, quake... absolute pure gaming experiences, no focus groups, no market studies, just some brilliant young men making the games they wanted to play.
I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap, playing wolfenstein and doom. I was 6 years old. Doom has been a large part of my life. I even make my own levels
5 HOURS OF JOHN CARMACK! MY BODY IS READY.
Ready to absorb all his genius to myself!
No homo tho
But is your brain?
.. ew.
This man can answer incredibly complex questions with 5000 words as if they’re written in front of his eyes
@Felipe Lavratti Also the fact that he's a genius before a programmer
You can tell John Carmack has a lot of interesting conversations with himself as practice :)
@Felipe Lavratti never thought about it that way, thank you.
@Felipe Lavratti dude for every articulate programmer, there are like 10 with questionable communication skills
yeah but he actually doesn't answer the questions, he get lost in his digression...
Only 5 hours? Please, do more interviews with this genius.
It blows my mind that John Carmack has achieved so much despite only being 20 years old.
@@MyAmazingUsername he is 53 years old.
It's wild how this does not feel like it's 5 hours. The conversation flows so naturally.
5 hours of Carmack... Lex Fridman that is something else... Love it! :)
Lucky Lex
One can roughly tell how great a Lex podcast episode is going to be by its length. I think I’m not going to be disappointed. :)
This guy is one of the many reasons I’m getting into coding at 26. It’s not to late to start a journey. I’ll learn this stuff, one weekend class at a time!
I’m 36 and jumping in myself. Never to late to learn. Always too early to procrastinate
you still early dont worrie
@@codybishop7526 True story! I'm right there with ya. Can you imagine how capable we'll be by 56?
Welcome - it's never too late
Been writing code since 8 and I am 36. I learn new things everyday. Carmack is a legend. Go look up how they solved for fast inverse square root. There is always more to learn.
I LOVE hearing someone as talented as Carmack calmly stating "it's beyond what I can have an informed opinion on" (2:21:32). This shows not only humbleness, but his profound sense of respect for the engineering work behind everything he works with. So few people are capable of uttering these words nowadays, and none of those has 1% of Carmack's knowledge. Great, great example.
Very true especially for someone that’s achieved so much
Ironically the more competent people are more likely to say this
It takes a humble human being to not let success and fame go to your head. That’s what I admire about John Carmack
I can listen to Carmack talk for hours and not get bored somehow, so wholesome.
Please do a second and third interview. I enjoyed every second and will listen to it again. John Carmack totally inspires me. Passion, hard work with vision. An absolute role model.
This guy has inspired millions
Came here to say this! Please do some sequels. I could watch this for days.
Hard work= Genius
I'll listen to as many episodes with Carmack as you can possibly make.
This was the shareware episode, the next two you have to write a check and send it to Carmack to get it
Damn, this Fridman guy is a great podcast guest! He should come more often.
😂
There's something so innocent and benevolent about John's whole demeanor that's hard to ignore. I'm a big fan of him!
I know right!! I just had this thought a few minutes ago. Something about how he talks that just makes me feel like everything will be okay :p
Only 5 hours but John can talk for 10 hours and it still wouldn't be enough. What a Legend. Thanks John for all the great memories of the early graphic days.
How the bloody hell did you get this man on for 5 flippin hours? that is a marathon of a podcast
That's easy carmack talks a lot
Man its JC you just gotta look in his direction and its noon in no time.
Listen to his presentations, they're usually already 2 hours of non stop talking. He's a master at talking next to programming
It's Carmack's specialty. His Quakecon keynotes would last for around three and a half hours or so.
Carmack loves to talk, he also loves to choke people out to showcase his martial arts skills
Just keep him talking for your own safety.
I just loved that interview. The thousands of hours I spent playing Wolf 3D, Spear of Destiny, Doom, Doom 2, Commander keen. Our circle of friends always spoke about John Carmack with reverence. What a great trip down memory lane. It's great to see what Mr. Carmack is up to these days. Fantastic interview.
As a programmer and scientist, this is the most interesting conversation I've heard in a long time. John Carmack is a legend
Absolutely love John Carmack, incredible genius and yet he never uses complicated language to express himself, probably the most accessible genius I know.
He uses language like he uses code, incredibly efficiently.
the fact he uses simple language just heightens his genius tbh, yes
well said. if one of his deep dives had've been the english language, i'm sure he would've emerged with a lot of words that would be inscrutable to others, but i think it's kind of telling that the things he's delved into are things that have mass appeal (games, rockets, VR, AI). things everyone is fascinated by but that most do not feel adventurous enough to dive into.
Perhaps the best well-spoken tech person I know
Simple man
That's what a true genius would do. Being aware of how to communicate and that not everyone knows as deep as he does.
He speaks with the same level of enthusiasm about his old and new projects, great stuff.
I took 3 weeks to cobble together the time to listen to all 5 hours but it was so worth it. Great interview Lex.
This is solid gold. SOLID GOLD.
I wish I was introduced to Carmack earlier. The man really looks like a unique human being.
Jesus freaking christ, this is going to be awesome! 5 hours of pure nerdism!
Thank you Lex and John!
Longest podcast I have ever listened to lol
Have either one of them ever had a date?
@@jameshorn7830 Carmack has kids
I could easily have listened to Carmack another 5 hours, but listening to Lex is so damn boring I don't want another 5 minutes of him alone. He sounds like he's about to fall asleep in the middle of every sentence. He does at least sound fairly knowledgeable about most of the subjects being brought up, which helps a bit, but I doubt I'll watch most of the other interviews.
@@HenrikDanielsson I used to agree with you but I think he has improved with time, speaking faster etc. He has grown on me.
What I love about John Carmack every word out of his mouth is informative and insightful while just keeping a casual conversation. Brilliant!
this is the way
This is one of those Podcasts where it feels like 5 hours is way too short. Carmack is such a fascinating person.
People who are at the absolute pinnacle in programming often have an ego problem, especially in academia but Carmack is such a humble, down to earth guy. Imagine working for a month or so under him....
You think there is no ego?
@@steve_baileyI honestly don’t see any ego, I just see an extremely confident guy who has every right to be so based on what he’s done in the industry. Every time Lex asks him about a topic, Cormack gives his opinion and backs it up with arguments. What’s
more, he makes sure to emphasise on the fact that these are his opinions and not some universal truths. When I compare him to most university professors I’ve had, I see zero ego
@@peterk2735 Humm... I do see a strong emotianal deficiency in him, which is not rare in top coders. He skirts most humans question (exemple his mentioning of wife and kids is as best generic... Lex can't even do the love bit of his act... haha) If you can make abstraction of feelings it is easier to hide your ego. This in no way diminishes how facintating a mind at that level can be.
If i get to work under such a powerhouse, i would enslave myself willingly even though not being necessary.
@@fredandre8224 I see what you mean, but this form of ego kind of comes with the territory. I mean all these hardcore top level devs devote the majority of their time into programming, which obviously gives you a lot of self-confidence, maybe too much at times. But for me this is an “honest” form of ego, because you simply don’t get to this level in IT without being extremely passionate, talented and dedicated. I mean Carmack is one of the founders of 3d graphics and the guy did that on hardware less powerful than a modern printer. All I’m saying is that I’d have a bit of an attitude too 😅😆
Can we all say, John Carmack has aged so well. That beard is spot on and the glasses brings me back to the 90's. Gosh I miss the 90's
He sounds like a nerd but looks like a dude. That does not compute.
The man is an athlete and he will absolutely choke you out, look it up "John Carmack chokes out Jace Hall".
I miss the 80s
@@evilcraftknife5705 Nah, he is just passionate about what he does and what he works on. A legend that deserves much more.
@@LarsRyeJeppesen in 20 years u gonna miss the 2020s. So instead enjoy them right now
John Carmack is a legend. always great to hear him talk
Didn't expect you to be here.
@@polishcow968 kk mmk
@@polishcow968 mmk
It's so relaxing to listen to him speak. Just honest, direct and lucid.
I just love John Carmack. He gave me some of my happiest memories as a kid. I just loved the hours I spent in my cousin’s little basement, playing Commander Keen while Nickelodeon played in the background. Thank you, Carmack.
Legends say John Carmack is still talking to himself in Lex's studio in the dark.
I'm really awestruck by John Carmack. I'm a programmer myself and I had a similar "Love at first sight" experience with programming. When I first got into it, I even had a somewhat manic period of my life where I was hyper productive and even at times believed I was destined to be one of the greats, because I simply loved programming so much. It was all I thought about, all I did, and I never saw my life being any different. But slowly, with time, that enthusiasm, love, and joy, tapered off. I find Carmack amazing because he seems to have never had this "tapering off" experience. His interest and love for programming has remained and his productivity never wavered.
I've thought at great lengths about why I lost that manic energy and passion. I don't have a good explanation. All life style factors are in check (sleep, exercise, diet). I just wonder if it's a brain thing. For some reason I get excited about things, and then over time they lose their excitement and I move on. For some reason, Carmacks brain doesn't work that way, and he seems to keep that "beginners mind" where he just loves programming so much that he is inspired all the time.
my guess is environment is important, find the right projects to work on
subconscious fear of success?
This is quite common for a lot of people. You discover something that you're good at or that you really enjoy. You start to get into it and I mean really into it, both in terms of the technical and enthusiasm aspects and then you just do that for a longer period of time.
Why the interest falls off eventually can be down to a number of factors but I think that the most common theme is that you do almost exclusively that one thing. It could be compared to listening to the same song over and over. When your life revolves just around one activity you may find yourself in a place where you don't have space for other things. It could very well be that you naturally and spontaneously stop doing that thing because you're starting to burn out on it, or because you're doing it so frequently the rewarding felling you get from it wears off.
I think that it is really important to have other things to do, ideally more than one, and incorporate them into your lifestyle. You know the saying - variety is the spice of life.
but did you have a hugely positive feedback loop like he did? i too am one of the "loved it for years" but terrible management and dull projects have ground my passion into dust. if i was worth millions and had adoring fans and could literally work on whatever i wanted then it would be a totally different matter.
i am sorry but programming obsessively is nothing like listening to the same song on repeat. the field is vast and deep, but the doors into interesting projects are hard to pass through.
3:35:00 You can sense John's frustration with VR at Meta as a foreshadow to his departure.
Not a foreshadow, he had already left, he was only working as a consultant for Meta at this point.
Really amazed at Lex's insight to have Carmack talk admirably about Romero... really great instincts.
When I saw Carmack I got excited but when I noticed the length I came
Brilliant interview, having Carmack unleash himself for 5 hours but staying within the realm of the understandable is great!
I’ve listened to his speeches at game conferences many times, and he flies into technical abstraction like a rocket.
Lex's definition of what wealth means for him is also mine. When I was a teenager I dreamed of being able to buy full versions of games, instead of getting copies of shareware (or even full games) from my friends.
Also, I can't believe I've been watching this video for almost 2 hours. It's felt like 15 or 20 minutes.
Don't forget to add being able to eat Pizza when ever you want...
This has been one of my all time favorite episodes of a podcast. Two brilliant minds. Thanks for this Lex, and I hope he becomes one of your repeat guests.
Quake reshaped my life. I almost failed the final 2 years of school because I was playing so much. All I wanted to do was play Quake, so whatever money I made, I just bought new equipment to play. Fast forward through the 23 years of Quake, I've made a career out of reviewing gaming mice and tech products, giving a unique opinion in the tech space because Quake has such a strong focus on aim and dodging; it really pushes you to find the best. And now I have my own mouse design on the market. For me, that's a huge story and I can't believe I'm here because of Quake. In reality, I'm not even worth mentioning compared to just how much John has influenced the world.
This man is amazing, 5 hours still isn't enough. Thanks for having him on, Lex! Love your work!
As a veteran Quake addict, I approve this message.
I just played the remaster. It's amazing how well this game aged, like fine wine.
Found the Quakebro.
@@phillipgoat00 Still badass as ever. Quake 2 is still awesome as well. I hope they remaster it.
@@phillipgoat00 Quake is still one of the best games ever.
As Commander Keene/Doom addict, I approve it as well
“Because life is…shitty” Lex, thank you for saying this man, it helped me feel not alone on this planet.
Thank you so much for posting this interview. I understand that for you this is an incredible opportunity to be able to interview Carmack in person and for more than 5 hours, but for those of us who miss his long lectures at Quakecon it was truly something special.
5 Hours... I tell you I felt like it was 30 min. What a great interview. Congratulations Mr. Fridman for getting the chance of interviewing one of the greates minds of our generation.
Ahh, the legend. I have been admiring John Carmack since the early 1990s. I fondly remember connecting my computer to my friends computer via a serial cable, and running Doom. The feeling of playing against my friend over a local "network" was just amazing. I have the original Doom floppy disc shareware version on my shelf (1993).
It's gunna take me a week to watch this but 50 odd mins in and I'm really enjoying this. Both are a pleasure to listen to.
Over the course of a couple weeks, I watched this entire interview. Thanks so much Lex and John! It is so educational, engaging, and inspiring! I can't wait for the next interview with John! Lex your interview style is phenomenal! Keep up the outstanding work!
Funny, it took me about as much time to finish it as well. I normally listen to a full episode start to finish but this one wanted to take its time. Im glad it did too because even 5 hours doesn’t seem long enough for this kind of engaging conversation.
@@user-yb7im5ku2c strange and interesting , I seem to have the opposite you folks have: With interviews that place less “value” on (however you would like to boil down a human beings thoughts and opinions into a value haha) I normally stretch them out, but with interviews such as this where each and every word is like a gemstone, I consume it as fast as possible - as if it’s a sort of forbidden knowledge waiting to be eaten up.
Pssht... I knocked it out in 20 minutes.
So glad for John to be on your podcast Lex. I am proud to have demonstrated a version of volumetric video rendering in an augmented reality context on mobile that I wrote for John when he came to visit the Samsung offices.
I just saw a couple of your demos. Great stuff.
@@HecmarJayam Thanks!
been missing his quakecon talks. this feels like christmas.
With u there
Christmas wishes it was this
The past 6-7 years of Oculus Connect talks fill the same space. They are all here on YT
This is one of my favorite peices of UA-cam, and I have UA-cam running pretty much all day, and have for years. Never have I seen comprehensive interviews this long with John Carmack, it’s like finding a rare stone.
I never thought I would listen so intently through a 5 hour + podcast… but here I am! That was a really awesome episode… thank you so much!
Lex: what's your favorite programming language.
Carmack: Python is slow. Javascript is not terrible. And c++ is where I do real work.
The most accurate description of Javascript ever.
Javascript is OK so long as you don't try to program it like C.
In short; There is no 'favorite', just different tools for different jobs, and slight preferences for the handles of each tool.
This interview is a gift to humanity.
well said!
I love that fact that not only is he world class at optimising code but he is also an optimist at heart (especially when Lex was pressing him about dark times). Legend 😊
You have to be a REAL optimist to optimise some code....:P
Years ago i read a book called masters of doom and John Carmacks side of the story was what really inspired me to learn about programming.
Hands down the best podcast yet, Lex. I've struggled a lot with envy in my life. There's a lot to envy in John Carmack. Yet, somehow, I don't feel envious of him. I just feel happy for him and inspired by him. He just loves what he does. And that final quote towards the end, "Don't convince yourself that you can know everything, but *do* convince yourself that you can know anything." That really just sums him up. And it's something I believe too. Don't ever take someone else's word on what you can personally accomplish in your life or what you're entitled to become involved in. Just go after it if it interests you. Just do it. I don't always live up to that sort of advice, but I do try to remember it from time to time. John's enthusiasm for life and knowledge just pours out of him. And it's in this way that's almost autistic but exactly in the right way -- indicating a lack of concern for what he's supposed to be doing or saying, but it doesn't mean he's a jerk. It just means he goes full steam towards what he likes all the time. Sixty hours a week, as he said.
He's the definition of an inspiring person. A role model. Because he's open about not being perfect. This whole interview gave me so much hope and motivation even though I know I'll never be able to reach his level. And his advice apples to all professions, not just coding.
I've seen a few interviews with Carmack, all of them great... but at only an hour in this is easily the best. Lex's questions and followups are just perfect and Carmack is Carmack.
I've been playing Doom since I was 4 years old. My mom was horrified when she discovered that I had found the game on a shareware disc. My parents didn't know what to do so the rule was, I couldn't show my friends the game ahahaha. Fun times, I turned out fine, we laugh about it still.
coming from a gaming family I remember setting it up for my niece to play when she was 3
....I cleared the enemies out first - I'm not a monster
Yeah doom was my first game too. 6 years old. Dos commands were on sticky notes next to the computer. Parents didn't care either way but still. I was in there.
4?? 😂😂😂
If I had kids id be pretty relaxed on controlling what they see in video games. My parents were more or less that way. But Jesus, lol. 4??? Some of your first memories are in hell.
@@austinlittle1638 I was 4 or 5 when I first played Doom… the violence wasn’t that gory at all it was cartoony if anything to me 😂
Carmack is such a unique mind, always fascinating to hear him speak.
I am not even a programmer per se, and yet still find myself intrigued by the conversation 5+ hours later. That says alot. Thank-you for the quality content Lex ... There are alot of concepts here that cross platforms seemlessly as creative and organizatioal tools.
I am not a programmer and I don't know a ton about it, but I love listening to John speak. He is simultaneously very humble, well spoken and thoughtful. You should notice how he never really stumbles when speaking and he rarely interjects over someone. He always comes off as well read on anything he speaks about and it's absolutely mesmerizing to listen to.
I’ll be listening to this on repeat. If y’all out there really enjoyed this, look up all of John Carmack’s Oculus Connect speeches. Imo he is the most interesting speaker out there. If I accidentally tune out for 30 seconds I always back it up.
I literally listen to the most recent few at least once a year, so thanks for the new content!
I just tuned out for a few second reading your comment and then backed it up! 😆
@@FredPauling Oh, a fellow adhdude.
This is the best interview I have seen ever. Download and archive this. This is history and how to learn about it, the failures and hardships you have to go through, to make a better future. Both in general or as a low/high level programmer.
Kudos to the interviewer too. It is obvious you were enjoying yourself because you wouldn't have got almost 1M of views if people wouldn't have enjoyed it too.
Thank you for having the endurance to interview John. One thing I'd like to know about is that reading list from Ilya Sutskever that was mentioned. If John didn't join OpenAI and considers it worth his time to compete, there has to be something to it.
Lex has machine learning lectures in MIT, a 5 hour podcast is light work compared to that :P
SUCH a great interview! John Carmack is the man and one of the greatest minds in the game industry.
1 hour in and his influence is deep in the computer industry. Amazing how he is this practical considering all these years
Absolutely and so is Mike Acton ua-cam.com/video/rX0ItVEVjHc/v-deo.html
5 hours with John Carmack, what a privilege.
You know more about him, about his past, his present and his futur. I enjoyed listening/watching you two discuss various things, having an intellectual exchange. Brilliant minds.
Thank you for making this podcast Lex.
One of the best interviews I've ever seen. Carmack is a genius. Listening to him talk in such a crystal clear way is amazing. Everything he says is precise and easily understandable. You can truly see how intelligent he is by the way he puts sentences together.
Huge thanks for doing this interview!
Lex I absolutely love your podcast. Thank you so much for your dedication to having these conversations, I and so many others appreciate it more than you know!
I'm 52 years old and have played most of the games that that John was involved in and loved them. But after a hiatus from gaming I came back to pc gaming and Quake 3 Arena with the mod community, I was hooked. Q3 was where I became a pc gaming/ fps enthusiast. John, thank you for all the joy you've given us.
Carmack and Romero were an incredible pairing!
Carmack had the technical wizardry to make these amazing game engines that allowed Romero to use his creativity to have exceptional game design, atmosphere, and a great understanding of the players' mentality.
This was just freaking awesome!!! One of the best conversations ever! I'm really hoping for a part 2 soon! I'm always wondering where you find these incredible minds for us to learn from, but every time you come with somebody new, who just blows my mind. You're a wonderfull person Lex. Thank you for letting us follow your journey, where ever the path takes you. Thank you.
Your outro and personal message to John at the end was concise and beautifully spoken. I think you captured the sentiment of your entire audience with that. Great interview and conversation, Lex.
I hope that John Carmack's voice is saved and used in the future in an AI capacity so future generations can hear and speak with him many years in the future as a mentor for development of their own advancement in coding. The voice of a founding father.
5 hours of podcasting is much much MUCH more than you'd ever need to faithfully recreate his voice for sure.
@@master74200 how long somebody’s voice recording needs to be to recreate it successfully? How many samples you need? :)
@@dzonsonmakdael5754 It's more about the phonemes that they cover. If you spend 5 hours saying "lalalala" into a microphone it won't work well. If you optimised phoneme cover then you could crunch the time down significantly (though I would imagine you need to capture instances of them flowing into each other).
General conversation is a good middle ground.
@@dzonsonmakdael5754 As has already been mentioned, it's not so much about length of voice recording, but covering all the sounds they may make when speaking and how they speak. 5 hours of podcasting should definitely cover a very broad array of those sounds. Sure, it won't cover 100% all of the ways they may pronounce every word, but you probably don't need that either.
I want to hear him say: "I'm afraid I can't do that, %username%" :)
A few weeks ago I was wishing for more John Carmack interviews/content. Talk about delivering! As I'm listening, I have mad respect for Carmack as an interviewee - he always tries to give an informative and relevant answer, and even if he has notes in front of him the depth of his technical explanations for "the ancient ways" is incredible. I never thought I'd get a detailed explanation for Keen's "SVGA compatibility" switch but there it is and I LOVE it
This is probably my favorite episode. Just a gem how much insight is here. I loved everything about it. Thanks for sharing guys.
One of the best interviews I've ever heard period.
"we didn't even have mice back then" - This man was the spark, our childhood was the fuel. Protect him at all cost
If his mothers' name is Sarah I am sold. Close enough.
Wow, just finished this epic interview! I would need 5 hours just to write up a good summery of what they covered! Carmack can so effortlessly talk about so many technical topics, I am truly in awe each time I hear him speak. You definitely need to have him on again so we can learn more about his journey into building AI systems!
I listened to the totality of this 5+ hours podcast today on a long drive. I was deeply moved by the recounting of the Game Dev days at Id. His stories of how difficult it was to obtain programming books and sources of valid information on the craft back in the 1980s match my own experiences and frustrations of that time. His advice on how and why to do what we do and for whom we do it was also spot on and some of his tips will definitely be put into use going forward with the software engineering teams I lead at work. I was left with optimism about the future of where AI and AGI in particular might one day take us. Thanks for this and all the episodes you produce!
I've been a team lead for about 1,5 years now and honestly it's been the hardest challenge I've ever had to tackle. I was fortunate enough to work with a CTO that like Cormack, has no zero ego and just wants to explain and help out people. I can't put into words how much people like that inspire me and when I get 19-20 year old guys in the team, I try to give the same thing back.
Definitely one of your best interviews ever! My only disappointment was that you didn't ask him what it took to get Trent Reznor to produce the Quake soundtrack, I'd love to hear that story from his mouth. I'm also curious about his experience working with blockchain technology and if he thinks it will play a major role in the future of gaming. Oh well, topics for next time!
Best interview ever, Carmack is one of my heroes. I spent many hours on Doom, Q2 and Q3, Unreal, Half Life and Asherons Call in the 90s and 2000s.
Same, big reason why I got into coding 20 years ago
I did not know Carmack was responsible for AC, that’s awesome, lots of memories on that one, my second MMO after UO
@@stuGkresreB i dont think he was but at that time thats what i was into, and all those devs are legends too m3.
Life changing content here - a monstrously powerful figure who I know shaped my character in significant ways -- since first playing Commander Keen, to staying up all night competing in Quake 3. It's a real honor to hear him share like this.
same. john (and his work) significantly inspired my ambition for coding early on. its reassuring to see him looking so youthful and sharp here, after what feels like an eternity since the 90s.. i am only 34 years old now, but my recollection of playing those early id software games feels almost like i have implanted memories from another lifetime lol
@@jwallace6913 it’s funny. I’m as far from code and programming as possible. I was military, followed by school for finance and accounting etc. but he’s always inspired me based on the whole mantra of mastering your craft. When you stop and think about it. Doom/Wolf 3D are more important than even pong and Mario bros in regards to modern design architecture standards. And while that may not apply to my personal field, it reminds me of the importance of respecting the gold standards in certain processes or systems, and how you can always rely on them, or even better, improve upon them
He's an absolute legend. I remember Commander Keen. Played it circa 1992-93. Original Doom played in 1994 was what changed my life.
Check out the Game Engine Black Book: Doom if you're keen on getting into the nitty-gritty of the Doom codebase.
Oh boy, i spent so many hours playing Quake, all of them. Doom & Quake, best time in gaming for me. Q3 osp, pickups on mIRC quakenet... Sad it's not around anymore. Probably is in small scales, idk.
I have watched this all the way through at least three times! I am pretty new to CS , but love hearing John talk about his career. I remember playing Doom on Sega and Quake on PC. What a cool, passionate guy. This always motivates me to want to work hard and learn my stuff.
This was incredible, thank you so much to both of you!
I remember his 3 hours marathon lectures, speaking non stop, not even to get a drink, and him slowly sweating out a perfect Quake logo on his chest.
But seriously, if you've studied his programming, there are some pretty neat tricks. Some of them that tried to define a genre and failed, always mighty impressive to my feeble brain (Stencil buffer volumetric shadows, megatextures, early internet netcode protocol, and many more).
His BSP implementation is pretty fascinating. I think he wrote it in objective C for DOOM.
@@dafunkyshit DOOM used Objective C for the map editor, the engine on the other hand was mostly written in C.
@@HyperMario64 Ok thanks for correcting me. I've looked at the open source Linux ported code before, but it's been quite some time.
John is always so interesting to listen to. Great you were able to have him on! I grew up on his video games, he's a legend. 5 hours! Diving in!
Well 5 hours later, what an incredible interview. I really look forward to future interviews where John can talk more about progress on his AI work!
Having Pizza whenever you want is a good life goal. I would be happy with that.
Well that just makes sense given your profile picture 😹
@@lukeyluke9637 🍕👀💖
This must be done regularly on yearly basis. Thanks to Lex and John.
It’s incredible to me how minor throwaway statements from Carmack contain such deep insights into his thinking, and through his thinking insights into how he masterfully categorizes the reality he finds himself in to make complex things simple (ex: sigmoid curve, gradient descent). I think next to Fred Rogers, he’s my favorite human, and for clearly completely different reasons.
Seems like Rogers and Carmack simply chose different gradient descents. 😉
I just listened to the whole thing in one go while on a road trip! Fastest way to pass time ever! I wish that it was 10 hours!
Listen to it twice!
I come back to this podcast so many times, I would really really love to see a John Carmack EP2.