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☆ Elon Musk came up with a perfect audiobook list for anyone who thinks about Rome on a daily basis
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-01 | by ( Polly Thompson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewElon Musk has come up with a list of recommended audiobooks — but they may not make terribly relaxing listening by the pool or beach this summer. "Admittedly, this is a list that appeals to those who think about Rome every day," Musk wrote on X, referring to the viral internet craze questioning how often men dwell on the Roman Empire. Musk is known to be fascinated by history, particularly the study of warfare and civilization.

Persons: —, Elon, Tesla, Will, Ariel Durant, Rousseau, Musk, Friedrich Hayek, Durant, Hayek, Caesar, Doom, Kushner, The, Junger The, Tuchman, — Elon, General Douglas MacArthur, David Kushner, cofounders John Carmack, John Romero, Caesar himself, Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer, Alexander the Great, William Bolitho, Christopher Columbus, Genghis Khan, Jack Weatherford, Richard Ernest Dupuy, Trevor Dupuy, Edward Shepherd Creasy Organizations: Service, Business, Manchester Masters, SpaceX, Tesla, Archaeologic Museum Locations: Rome, Naples, Italy

☆ A former Facebook exec said he regrets not defending ousted Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey from a 'witch hunt.' Drama ensued.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A key former Facebook exec has reignited discussion of Oculus founder Palmer Luckey's 2016 firing. Former Oculus CTO and ex-Meta VR exec John Carmack said on X that he regrets not defending Luckey. Carmack and Luckey joined Facebook after it acquired Oculus, the VR company founded by Luckey in 2012, for $2 billion in 2014. "The culture has changed a lot since you left (internal discussions have to be work focused)," Bosworth replied on X. Business Insider reached out to representatives of Bosworth, Carmack, and Luckey but didn't receive an immediate response.

Persons: Palmer, John Carmack, Andrew Bosworth, Luckey, —, Palmer Luckey —, Carmack, Hillary Clinton, @PalmerLuckey, OTXBBnkK0p — John Carmack, Donald Trump, Clinton, he's, Carmack —, Bosworth, Meta, Forbes, wasn't, I'm Organizations: Facebook, Meta, Service, VR, Wall Street, Business Locations: California

☆ OpenAI and Meta are on the verge of releasing AI models capable of reasoning like humans, report says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI and Meta are close to unveiling AI models that can reason and plan, the FT reported. AdvertisementOpenAI and Meta are reportedly preparing to release more advanced AI models that would be able to help problem-solve and take on more complex tasks. Representatives for Meta and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours. Getting AI models to reason and plan is an important step toward achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), which both Meta and OpenAI have claimed to be aiming for. Elon Musk, a longtime AI skeptic, recently estimated that AI would outsmart humans within two years.

Persons: —, Brad Lightcap, Joelle Pineau, OpenAI, John Carmack, Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Elon Musk, Musk Organizations: Meta, Service, Financial Times, Business

☆ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says artificial general intelligence will be achieved in five years
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AGI will be reached in five years during the 2023 NYT DealBook Summit. Huang defined AGI as tech that exhibits basic intelligence "fairly competitive" to a normal human. Still, he admitted that AI technology is not quite there yet despite its rapid progress. AdvertisementJensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia — one of the companies that is fueling the AI revolution — predicts that we may be able to see artificial general intelligence, or AGI, within the next five years. "Software can't be written without AI, chips can't be designed without AI, nothing's possible," he concluded on the point of AI's potential.

Persons: Jensen Huang, Huang, —, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ross Sorkin, Sorkin, Ilya Sutskever, Ian Hogarth, John Carmack, Demis Hassabis, Nvidia didn't Organizations: Nvidia, Service, New York Times DealBook, AIs, OpenAI

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter will soon allow calls and encrypted DMs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says calls and encrypted messages are coming to Twitter. Elon Musk says Twitter will soon allow calls and encrypted messages. Musk did not specify an exact timeline for the call feature but said "encrypted DMs V1.0" should launch on Wednesday. In December, Musk said Twitter was planning to delete around 1.5 billion inactive accounts to free up usernames. When approached for comment, Twitter responded with an automated reply that did not address the question.

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter is purging inactive accounts to 'free up abandoned handles'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter is purging inactive accounts in a bid to free up usernames, said Elon Musk. Elon Musk warned Twitter users on Monday that the platform is purging accounts that have been inactive for a few years. "We're purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop," Musk tweeted. He also didn't say if or how people might re-activate their inactive accounts. Under the years-old policy, inactive accounts typically get to keep their usernames, and their handles aren't released to active users.

☆ Nvidia's top A.I. chips are selling for more than $40,000 on eBay
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Kif Leswing | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Nvidia's most-advanced graphics cards are selling for more than $40,000 on eBay , as demand soars for chips needed to train and deploy artificial intelligence software. The prices for Nvidia's H100 processors were noted by 3D gaming pioneer and former Meta consulting technology chief John Carmack on Twitter. The H100, announced last year, is Nvidia's latest flagship AI chip, succeeding the A100, a roughly $10,000 chip that's been called the "workhorse" for AI applications. Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tens of thousands of Nvidia A100 chips to help build ChatGPT. Nvidia controls the vast majority of the market for AI chips.

☆ AGI's 'big brass ring,' artificial general intelligence, will be worth trillions, ex-Meta executive predicts
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Ex-Meta exec John Carmack predicts that AI will soon simulate the human brain, per Dallas Innovates. He said that "artificial general intelligence" will be achieved by the 2030s and be worth trillions. Carmack's comments come as ChatGPT and generative AI tools have begun to show AI's capabilities. The ex-Meta executive and virtual reality visionary said that artificial general intelligence or AGI is AI's "big brass ring" and will become a trillion-dollar industry by the 2030s. Tools like deep fakes, chatbots, and voice synthesis already provide a glimpse into what artificial general intelligence can do, Carmack said.

☆ Ex-Meta exec had 'real issues' with the company's decisions and spending: 'I thought large fractions were really poorly spent'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Former Meta VR exec John Carmack said he had "real issues" with the company's plans and spending. "I was having some real issues at Meta with large-scale strategic directions," Carmack said in an interview with the business publication, Dallas Innovates. "I'm sure you've seen some of the headlines about how much money they're spending, and I thought large fractions were really poorly spent." He had previously been Oculus' CTO. Zuckerberg has taken several strides in recent months to cut back on company spending — including embracing his role as "Chopper-in-Chief," Insider's Kali Hays reported.

☆ Facebook lost several notable leaders in 2022, from Sheryl Sandberg to John Carmack, with more changes likely to come
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

As Facebook began 2022 with a quiet reorganization, several executives and well-known leaders left the company. Along with executives leaving the company, Meta also laid off 11,000 employees, with even more cuts possible in the coming weeks. Sheryl SandbergSheryl Sandberg Facebook COO. Maria Angelidou-SmithAngelidou-Smith joined Meta in 2014 and spent five years as head of monetization for the Facebook app. When the company began to quietly reorganize and plan for layoffs in late summer, the Facebook app was not immune.

☆ Meta says it's committed to the metaverse and will continue to invest 20% of its spending in it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meta's chief tech officer wrote in a blog post on Monday that the company is committed to the metaverse. Meta will continue to invest 20% of its spending on the efforts. Bosworth addressed criticism that the company was diverting attention away from its core platforms like Instagram to focus on the metaverse. The post comes after John Carmack, who was the consulting CTO of Meta's virtual-reality initiative, including its Meta Quest headset, left the company last week. "During boom times, it's easy to make big, ambitious investments in what's coming next," Bosworth wrote in his Monday post.

☆ The perks of tech work are rapidly disappearing. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But we've got more to talk about today, including the disappearance of lavish tech industry perks, and which generation of workers are most likely to feel "tech shame." When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, one of the first things he did was take away perks related to wellness, family planning, productivity, training, and home offices. The disappearance of perks is a shift from the decade before, when perks helped companies differentiate themselves from competitors. We explain why the perks of tech work are rapidly disappearing. Musk made the comments before the closure of his Twitter poll, which asked users if he should stay.

☆ John Carmack: Virtual reality titan is leaving Meta
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Video game pioneer John Carmack is resigning from his consulting position at Meta with “mixed feelings” about the “end of his decade in VR,” he announced in a Facebook post Friday. Carmack stuck around through the company’s more than $10 billion investment into virtual reality technology. He was an early advocate for virtual reality, thought it was not uncommon for him to criticize Meta. Meta bought Oculus VR in 2014 for $2 billion, and now sells the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets. “I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover,” Carmack said.

☆ In scathing exit memo, Meta VR expert John Carmack derides the company's bureaucracy: 'I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced his exit in an internal memo. Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 before Facebook acquired it, and moved to a new consulting role at Oculus in 2019. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced plans to leave the company Friday in an internal memo viewed by Insider. The scathing note, posted to the company's internal Workplace forum, openly criticized Meta's AR and VR work, core to its metaverse ambitions. "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort," Carmack wrote in the memo.

☆ John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving. 'I wearied of the fight'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as CTO, prior to its acquisition by Facebook. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving, according to two people familiar with the company. Overall, Carmack said he simply "wearied of the fight" with Meta, formerly known as Facebook, which acquired Oculus in 2014. Despite being one of the best known and more popular VR headsets on the market, Meta changed the name of the brand last year to Meta Quest. During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset.

☆ How many more warning signs does Mark Zuckerberg need to see before he pulls the plug on his metaverse?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Meta's metaverse experiment isn't off to a promising start, with plenty of recent warning signs. But so far, the overall experience of being in Meta's metaverse is lacking — for both the public and even those within the company. So, Meta's metaverse experiment is not exactly off to a promising start. "Why don't we love the product we've built so much that we use it all the time," the company's Metaverse VP Vishal Shah wrote in the memo, according to The Verge. Some other good questions: How many more warning signs does Zuckerberg need to see?

☆ Facebook's 'desperate' metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company's future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg made another pitch for his metaverse this week, failing to placate investors. One analyst called it a "desperate" and likely doomed attempt by the company to reinvent itself. But Neil Campling, an analyst and head of research at Mirabaud, summed it up in one word: "desperate." And the Quest Pro, while much more expensive than Quest 2, is "a very fine piece of engineering," he said. Some on Wall Street are also willing to give Facebook more of a chance to prove itself, despite the costs.

☆ Meta's 'desperate' metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company's future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg made another pitch for his metaverse this week, failing to placate investors. One analyst called it a "desperate" and likely doomed attempt by the company to reinvent itself. But Neil Campling, an analyst who is the head of research at Mirabaud, summed it up in one word: "desperate." And he said the Quest Pro, while much more expensive than Quest 2, was "a very fine piece of engineering." Some on Wall Street are also willing to give Meta more of a chance to prove itself, despite the costs.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg is making a classic big Silicon Valley mistake — one we last saw made by Marissa Mayer at Yahoo
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Mark Zuckerberg is making the same mistakes that plagued former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Zuckerberg, too, is making a big bet on the metaverse, one better suited for the venture capital world. As Meta shifts to become "a metaverse company" amid stalling user growth and slowing ad sales, stories are emerging about the growing pains that have arrived alongside the changes. Zuckerberg's metaverse play isn't unusual in the tech world, it's just not one we've often seen pay off outside the world of venture capital. Marissa Mayer also had an ambitious vision — and it didn't pay offFormer Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

☆ From Meatspace to Metaverse: Two Books on Virtual Reality
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Steven Poole | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

In the annals of hype about things that don’t yet exist, the metaverse has enjoyed an impressive rocketlike trajectory. Other tech giants, including Microsoft and Nvidia, are also pivoting to the metaverse. In the mid-20th century, “metaverse” was an obscure synonym for metapoetry, or poetry about poetry. Mr. Stephenson’s readers have wanted to go to the metaverse ever since. John Carmack, the lead developer of the first-person-shooter game “Doom,” once said it was a moral imperative to build the metaverse.

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