Carmack is one of my heroes, the whizkid who makes multiple frontier innovations in the computer graphics field, and one of the best engineers in the world. His philosophy resonates with me a lot, for e.g: - Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. I think he spent multiple decades working 60 to 80 hours a week. - Truly love the work he's doing and figure out a way to spend the most time on it. - Categorising periods of his life by how rich his learning experiences were at the time. - Almost every constraint in the modern age is self-imposed The dynamic between the two John's and the employer at which they met is interesting: the stealing the computers at night, working on company time, releasing a game behind his back, after all that being offered a deal by their old employer to finance their new company. It's a bit sad seeing how they Carmack and Romeo eventually split up after multiple successes, and how the two eventually realised how they miss each other (with Carmack being the tech and Romeo being the soul/fun of the team). The ending of the book is a bit chaotic imo, especially with the missing conclusion. I would recommend watching this podcast episode between him and lex: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=18260s)