Loud is Not the Same as Good
Trigger warning: This post contains opinions. Specifically mine. It also contains a confession or two, which I’m not thrilled about, but here we are. I don’t have many people in tech I actively look up to. The industry is drowning in loud, obnoxious voices who are very good at having opinions and very bad at having done anything. But Carmack is one of the rare exceptions. He’s always been the quiet, thoughtful one. The hacker in the original sense; someone who understands systems deeply enough to bend them, who ships because building is the point, not the clout. I’ve written before about my own struggle with that identity vs. the need to actually make money, that tension between doing the craft and doing the business. Carmack, for most of his career, has never had to compromise on that. He gets to just build. ...
