John Carmack

Also known as John D. Carmack II

John Carmack is a programmer who co-founded id Software and now works on artificial general intelligence at Keen Technologies, the startup he founded in 2022. As lead programmer on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, he brought graphics techniques such as binary space partitioning into games, and he founded Armadillo Aerospace in 2000 to build reusable rockets. In 2013 he became chief technology officer of Oculus VR, and in 2019 he stepped back to a consulting role to spend more time on AGI. Keen raised $20 million in 2022, and in 2023 he partnered with reinforcement learning researcher Richard Sutton on a goal of a genuine AI prototype by 2030. His recent experiments include a robot that plays a real Atari console through a camera and a robotic joystick, which he presented at Upper Bound 2025.

Now at: Keen Technologies
Born: 1970
Badges: Founder

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

1970–1990

Softdisk and Commander Keen

Born in 1970 in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, he attends the University of Missouri–Kansas City for two semesters before leaving to work as a freelance programmer. At Softdisk, a computer company in Shreveport, Louisiana, he, John Romero and others create the first Commander Keen game in 1990.
1992–1996

Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake

He co-founds id Software and is lead programmer on Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, Doom in 1993 and Quake in 1996, games that define the first-person shooter. Doom becomes the first game to use binary space partitioning, one of several graphics techniques he brings into games.
2000–2008

Rockets at Armadillo Aerospace

He founds Armadillo Aerospace in 2000 and builds reusable rocket ships there, both autonomous and piloted. In October 2008, the company wins first place in Level 1 of NASA's Lunar Lander Challenge and $350,000.
2001–2016

Emmys and a BAFTA Fellowship

He enters the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 2001, and he and id Software receive two Emmy Awards in 2007. The Game Developers Conference gives him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and BAFTA awards him its Fellowship, the highest honour the Academy can bestow, in 2016.
2012–2019

Chief technology officer at Oculus

In 2012, he works on the Oculus Rift prototype, using GPU distortion compensation and TimeWarp temporal reprojection. He joins Oculus VR as chief technology officer in August 2013 and resigns from id Software in November 2013 to work there full time; at Meta, he champions the mobile, all-in-one VR systems behind the Meta Quest line. In November 2019, he becomes consulting CTO so he can spend more time on artificial general intelligence.
2022

Founding Keen Technologies

He founds Keen Technologies in 2022 to work on the fundamental challenges of AGI. In August 2022, the startup raises $20 million from investors including Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Sequoia, and in December 2022 he leaves his consulting CTO post at Meta to focus on AGI.
September 2023

A partnership with Richard Sutton

In September 2023, he and reinforcement learning researcher Richard Sutton, chief scientific advisor at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), announce a partnership at the institute. They aim for a genuine AI prototype by 2030 that shows "AGI signs of life", with a shared focus on agency and the temporal.
2025–2026

An Atari-playing robot at Keen

At Amii's Upper Bound 2025 conference in Edmonton, he presents his experiment to ground reinforcement learning in physical reality: a robot that plays a real Atari console using a camera and a robotic joystick. In 2026, Sutton leaves Keen Technologies, Carmack's AI company, to launch the startup Oak Lab with his former student Khurram Javed.