Meta’s money pit

John Carmack, a virtual reality pioneer known for co-creating such games as Doom, testified recently in the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Facebook parent company Meta.

A few days later, he quit his part-time advisory role at Meta, where he was working with top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on the company’s ambitious plans for the metaverse, essentially a virtual reality-supported world where people can hang out as avatars to play, work and interact with one another.

Zuckerberg began to explore virtual reality in earnest in 2014 with Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of headset maker

Oculus. At the time, Carmack was Oculus’ chief technology officer and then joined Facebook after the deal closed.

Carmack, who recently was working just 6 hours a week for Meta, vented his frustration in a letter he posted to Facebook.

“There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy,” Carmack wrote. “Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say, ‘Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!’”

Carmack’s departure comes as Zuckerberg is battling widespread perceptions that he has been wasting billions of dollars trying to establish the company in the metaverse while his company’s advertising business is faltering.

The FTC has sued to try to stop Meta from buying a small VR fitness company, Within Unlimited, in an antitrust case that recently wrapped up. A ruling is expected later in January.