John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast #309

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

August 4, 2022

Duration

5h 14m

Channel

Lex Fridman Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

John Carmack is a legendary programmer, co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer of many revolutionary video games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the Commander Keen series. He is also the founder of Armadillo Aerospace, and for many years the CTO of Oculus VR. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

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EPISODE LINKS: John's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack Books mentioned: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: https://amzn.to/3SkNZER Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D: https://amzn.to/3QlOqg8 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 1:57 - Programming languages 33:01 - Modern programming 43:03 - Day in the life 50:53 - Hard work 54:06 - Pizza and Diet Coke 56:50 - Setup 1:22:08 - id Software 1:54:58 - Commander Keen 2:01:44 - Hacker ethic 2:09:24 - Wolfenstein 3D 2:29:21 - Doom 2:43:42 - Quake 3:08:02 - John Romero 3:15:49 - Metaverse 3:44:11 - Elon Musk 3:50:06 - Mars 3:59:09 - Nuclear energy 4:02:47 - AGI 4:49:59 - Andrej Karpathy 4:52:57 - Martial arts 5:01:57 - Advice for young people 5:10:57 - Meaning of life SOCIAL:

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🎤 SPEAKERS

• John Carmack

  guest

• Lex Fridman

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring John Carmack and Lex Fridman, John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast #309 explores john Carmack on coding, games, VR, AGI, and working obsessively hard John Carmack traces his journey from a self-taught kid obsessed with early computers to co-founding id Software and pioneering 3D game engines for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. He explains the concrete technical hacks and constraints that shaped these breakthroughs, from tile-based scrolling to ray casting and BSP trees, and how game feel and user value mattered more than technical purity.

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