John Carmack Net Worth 2023

What is John Carmack's Net Worth and Salary?

John Carmack is a $50 million net worth American game programmer. John Carmack is widely considered as a gaming industry pioneer who has had a huge impact on the landscape of interactive entertainment. He is likely best known for co-founding id Software, which helped pioneer the first-person shooter video game genre with the publication of "Wolfenstein 3D" in 1992. With the "Doom" franchise, id Software went on to experience immense success.

Carmack has made an unmistakable impact on the world of gaming with his revolutionary work in 3D graphics, virtual reality, and game engines. He was the primary programmer for well-known games including Rage, Doom, Quake, and Commander Keen.

John joined Oculus VR as Chief Technology Officer in 2012. He was a significant part of the Oculus Rift headset's development team. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus in March 2014.

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Early Life:

On August 20, 1970, John Carmack was born in Roeland Park, Kansas. He has a lifelong fascination in technology and computers. He spent numerous hours as a youngster fiddling with computers, learning programming languages, and pushing the limits of what was possible. His desire to create novel software was clear from an early age, and he rapidly became recognized for his remarkable programming abilities.

He and a bunch of students broke into a school at the age of 14 to steal Apple 11 computers. They broke into the building with John's own thermite+vaseline concoction. They were apprehended, and John was sent to a psychiatric facility for assessment. He was sentenced to a year in a juvenile facility.

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id Software:

Carmack co-founded id Software with John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack (no related) in 1991. The debut of "Wolfenstein 3D" in 1992, an innovative first-person shooter that popularized the genre, was the company's first significant breakthrough. Carmack's pioneering programming skills, which included the creation of the breakthrough "ray casting" engine, enabled smooth, immersive gameplay and realistic 3D visuals.

DOOM:

Building on the success of "Wolfenstein 3D," Carmack and the team at id Software released "DOOM" in 1993, pushing the frontiers of gaming once again. "DOOM" is regarded as a seminal title in the industry, having pioneered multiplayer gaming and popularized the first-person shooter as we know it today. Carmack's programming genius and optimization techniques guaranteed that "DOOM" worked smoothly even on low-end hardware, transforming the gaming experience for millions of players across the world.

Quake:

In 1996, Carmack and his team published "Quake," a game that included their pioneering engine technology, known as the Quake engine. This engine pioneered realistic 3D rendering and dynamic lighting, establishing new benchmarks for video game realism. With the introduction of dedicated server support, it also promoted online multiplayer gaming. The success of "Quake" reinforced Carmack's reputation as a technological genius and id Software's position as an industry leader.

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Virtual Reality and Aerospace Engineering:

Carmack's intense curiosity pushed him to investigate other topics while continuing to work at id Software. He got more interested in virtual reality (VR) and its potential for immersive experiences in the early 2000s. In 2012, he became the Chief Technology Officer of Oculus VR, where he was instrumental in the creation of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headgear that received global recognition for its creative design and immersive capabilities.

with addition to his VR ventures, Carmack has dabbled with aircraft engineering. He became the Chief Technology Officer of the aerospace business Armadillo Aerospace in 2013. His interest in space travel prompted him to embark on initiatives that attempted to create reusable rocket technology and advance the commercial space sector.

Acquisitions and Lawsuits:

ZeniMax Media paid $150 million for id Software in June 2009. It's believed that John controlled a third of id Software at the time of the transaction, resulting in a $50 million pre-tax profit. It should be noted, however, that in 2017, John filed a lawsuit against ZeniMax, alleging that the firm refused to pay him $22.5 million from the sale of id Software. In October 2018, John said that ZeniMax had "fully satisfied their obligations."

Carmack was named CTO of Oculus VR in 2013. He quit from id Software a month later. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus in March 2014. ZeniMax would eventually sue Oculus and Facebook, claiming that the Oculus Rift was the result of Carmack's intellectual property and so owned by ZeniMax. ZeniMax was eventually compelled to pay Facebook $500 million.