# John Carmack on Programming, Game Development, the Metaverse, and Artificial Intelligence
**URL:** https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/john-carmack-on-programming-game-development-the-metaverse-and-artificial-intelligence/1919
**Category:** Tracking with Closeups
**Created:** [28 August 2022 16:28 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/john-carmack-on-programming-game-development-the-metaverse-and-artificial-intelligence/1919 "2022-08-28T16:28:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnwalker](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/johnwalker)
#### Post date: [28 August 2022 16:28 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/john-carmack-on-programming-game-development-the-metaverse-and-artificial-intelligence/1919/1 "2022-08-28T16:28:26Z")
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4)
[John Carmack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack), founder of [id Software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software) and developer of games including [Doom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(1993_video_game)), [Quake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(video_game)), and [Wolfenstein 3D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D), later joined [Oculus VR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_VR) as Chief Technical Officer to guide their virtual reality development, and is now devoting much of his time to the topic of artificial general intelligence at his new company, Keen Technologies. He also founded [Armadillo Aerospace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace), winning first place in the the 2008 NASA Lunar Lander Challenge Level 1 and completing Level 2 before the company went into hibernation in 2013.
John Carmack is one of the most interesting and talented programmers in the world and has a wealth of wisdom and experience in programming languages, open source software projects, development tools, project management, and development strategies. In this marathon (five hour and 11 minute, about the average time it takes people to run a marathon) conversation with Lex Fridman, he discusses a wide range of topics, as follows, linked to the start points in the video if you’d like to pick those of interest.
- [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=0s) - Introduction
- [1:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=117s) - Programming languages
- [33:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=1981s) - Modern programming
- [43:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=2583s) - Day in the life
- [50:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=3053s) - Hard work
- [54:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=3246s) - Pizza and Diet Coke
- [56:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=3410s) - Setup
- [1:22:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=4928s) - id Software
- [1:54:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=6898s) - Commander Keen
- [2:01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=7304s) - Hacker ethic
- [2:09:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=7764s) - Wolfenstein 3D
- [2:29:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=8961s) - Doom
- [2:43:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=9822s) - Quake
- [3:08:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=11282s) - John Romero
- [3:15:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=11749s) - Metaverse
- [3:44:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=13451s) - Elon Musk
- [3:50:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=13806s) - Mars
- [3:59:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=14349s) - Nuclear energy
- [4:02:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=14567s) - AGI
- [4:49:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=17399s) - Andrej Karpathy
- [4:52:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=17577s) - Martial arts
- [5:01:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=18117s) - Advice for young people
- [5:10:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=18657s) - Meaning of life
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### Author:  [@gms](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/gms)
#### Post date: [28 August 2022 19:00 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/john-carmack-on-programming-game-development-the-metaverse-and-artificial-intelligence/1919/2 "2022-08-28T19:00:28Z")
Carmack is a very interesting guest and this is a Dan Carlin level podcast episode for Lex. Really interesting and a lot of interesting topics.
For Carmack aficionados, here is a link to a Joe Rogan [interview](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6kOa4mSuZcIOEPaGmDZf9r) he did in August 2019 (website includes a machine generated transcript of the conversation). At only two hours and a half, it might be the “lite” version of the Fridman talk, though many topics are new in the Lex dialogue.