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Comment by pawadu | Hacker News Reader

Read Carmacks biography!

His first job was at a small computer shop where he wrote business software. He felt the job was boring and with some friends started developing PC games in secret, on work machines and while lifting wages. This is how id software was born. Due to that book, I think he will have a hard time convincing a jury he is innocent.

edit: its even on wikipedia

Softdisk, [...] hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S [...] introducing him to John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian Carmack [...]. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others created the first of the Commander Keen games, [...]

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From what I remember of "Masters of Doom" he was indeed using his employer's PCs, office etc but outside of working hours and with the blessing of at least someone higher up. I don't think anything in there implies that he was defrauding the company.

IIRC they were doing just that but the owner let them off easy (they had to write some additional software for the company). With a more trigger happy owner things could have ended very differently

>From what I remember of "Masters of Doom" he was indeed using his employer's PCs, office etc but outside of working hours and with the blessing of at least someone higher up.

Sounds like a convenient post-hoc rationalization, right in line with what may be occurring in this developing story about the Rift.

If you don't believe it, read Masters of Doom - it's a hugely sympathetic history of id and they still manage to look like sociopaths in it, especially Carmack. They steal, lie and backstab their friends.

Especially Romero's "resignation". if that played out a tenth of how it was written, that's devastating.

Admittedly, Romero was getting complacent and becoming more of the end-user than developer, but man... To get booted from your own creation with a prepared resignation letter, savage.

Firing sixth wheel that stopped producing anything of value a savage move? The best thing Romero was involved in after Doom(and 10 quake maps?) was founding Ion Storm and only screwing up Dallas office(Did you "suck him down"? "became his bitch"?[1]) leaving Austin alone to create Deus Ex.

My fav is Brenda(wife) telling everyone a story of young brilliant Romero hacking computers at a military ICBM facility, basically a script to wargames ....

[1] http://kotaku.com/5541406/john-romero-is-so-sorry-about-tryi...

I don't think sociopathic is an accurate characterization. Carmack's behavior struck me as similar to someone with Asperger's Syndrome (based on the Masters of DOOM book.)

I've not read Masters of Doom, but I have heard Carmack describe his school-age self as a huge jerk. However, for a least the past 15 years he seems to have pulled a Gates (before Gates did) and has come across as one of the most genuine, nice people in tech. Not just in big, public displays but in every little thing he does in the constant public interaction that he has.

Anyone claiming Carmack to be a sociopath should remind themselves of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

I see so and so's razor thrown around so often I think many should remember philosophical niceties aren't always true. Sometimes the simplest explanation is not the correct one and sometimes things that could be simply attributed to stupidity are malicious (and targeted because of the nice disguise).

I know a lot of people in the STEM field that simply find it easier to act like they're socially inept and treat people like shit rather than "put in the work" to have nice, courteous relationships with people. I'd argue some even feel it makes them seem more intelligent to "not fit in with the normies."

That's not to say Carmack is or isn't a sociopath. I haven't read much on him outside of acknowledgement chapters in game design tutorials. It's just really tiring seeing people dismiss claims with aphorisms like the Greeks got everything right and we don't have to reason anymore...

Sociopath? There's no friends in business.

...is what a sociopath would say

Does that excuse sociopaths or indict business?

I've met plenty of successful business people for whom profits and tactical considerations do not override ethics, loyalty, or basic decency. There's no physical law that says that the business context automatically inflicts the kind of brain damage that inevitably leads straight to psychopathy.

There are many friends in business; they're necessary to aid in undermining those who act like they need none, and behave with predatory self-interest.

That's a rather selectively edited quote. Full version, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack:

> Softdisk, a computer company in Shreveport, Louisiana, hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S (an Apple IIGS publication), introducing him to John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian Carmack (not related). Later, this team would be placed by Softdisk in charge of a new, but short-lived, bi-monthly game subscription product called Gamer's Edge for the IBM PC (DOS) platform. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others created the first of the Commander Keen games, a series that was published by Apogee Software, under the shareware distribution model, from 1991 onwards. Afterwards, Carmack left Softdisk to co-found id Software.

Nowhere does it say that Commander Keen was created using work hardware or on company time.

Everything I've seen and read about Carmack portrays him as a guy who loves to build new tech. It would be totally out of character for him to copy and claim someone else's work, much less to "steal thousands of files."

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