
Introducing Michael Abrash, Oculus Chief Scientist - polskibus
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/
======
staunch
When a billionaire nerd that is "one of us" buys the VR company John Carmack
is the CTO of and backs it with all the resources at his disposal I get
excited. When he reunites two fathers of 3D game programming and the makers of
the Quake engine I start to freak out.

On the upside we have an unlimited budget to make VR real and on the downside
the team can always start again with VC money if necessary.

~~~
MrZongle2
I share your enthusiasm about Abrash joining Carmack to work on the Rift.

But if I may pick nits, _any_ billionaire -- nerd or not -- is most assuredly
_not_ "one of us". The rest of us have to worry about paying the bills,
driving ourselves to our jobs, working in less-than-stellar offices, worrying
about the cost of gas, food and medical bills, the education their kids
receive, etc.

I'm not trying to stoke the fires of class warfare, but billionaires are not
shackled for financial reasons like the rest of us. They can vacation in
paradise, make cool things happen at a stroke of a pen, and if they choose to
spend _hours_ per day doing nothing but daydreaming and speculating...they
can.

~~~
Kiro
> The rest of us have to worry about paying the bills, driving ourselves to
> our jobs, working in less-than-stellar offices, worrying about the cost of
> gas, food and medical bills, the education their kids receive, etc.

No, most people do not "worry" about these things. You make it sound so
dystopian.

~~~
jpatokal
I'm not sure what planet you're living on, but here on Earth most people _do_
worry about those things.

~~~
Kiro
Deal with them, yes. Worry, no.

------
aresant
Ok, I am over being mad at Facebook. This is huge.

Abrash has been the front facing member of Valve's efforts @ VR.

His "What VR could, should, and almost certainly will be within two years" (1)
paper was mind boggling as an Oculus Dev Kit owner.

This is going to be like watching the "Dream Team" come together in one place,
and I'm guessing that this ends all speculation about whether or not Carmack
sticks around under FB considering the collaborative history between these
two.

(1)
[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf)

~~~
waterlesscloud
The biggest thing about the Facebook deal is that Oculus will have hundreds of
millions of dollars to develop the hardware they dream of, not the hardware
they have to settle for.

They can design custom chips and displays and get it done faster than they
would if they'd waited to bootstrap themselves up to it.

FB can/will pour a ton of money into custom (vs off-the-shelf) hardware. And
FB is better than most investors in that they won't be looking for an
immediate payoff, so Oculus can do things right instead of too fast.

It's win/win/win, outside of the little kneejerk firestorm reaction. That will
fade.

~~~
jtfrench
>>>"The biggest thing about the Facebook deal is that Oculus will have
hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the hardware they dream of, not the
hardware they have to settle for."

I didn't realize this was public knowledge, yet you certainly state it as if
it was obvious. Do you have evidence of them having to settle for lame
hardware that $75M of investment couldn't get them? Where did this news
surface? Sounds interesting.

~~~
DanAndersen
There have been a few mentions of this both in videos and posts. Here's a
relevant bit from a post by Palmer Luckey on Reddit:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgc026n)

>We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone
industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars.
More news soon.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21lu33/introducing_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21lu33/introducing_michael_abrash_oculus_chief_scientist/cgeofkc)

>You are right that screens with big lenses in front of your eyes is
essentially a brute force design, a design that relies on utilizing the scraps
of the mobile phone industry to provide a good VR experience at the cost of
performance and form factor. Doing better requires insane resources, which we
now have.

------
martythemaniak
There's another thing from Snowcrash I've been thinking about - realistic
faces. The most exclusive club in the Metaverse was The Black Sun and what
made it special was that the avatars had extremely realistic, life-like
expressions, enabling them to visually express emotions and thus enabling a
higher form of communication (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't read it in a
decade).

So if we buy into the notion that social presence in VR worlds will be big,
somebody's going to have to build this. The technology exists, but it looks
very awkward: [https://www.fxguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HBT-
VFXpr...](https://www.fxguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HBT-
VFXprog-021.jpg)

Not only does that have to be translated into a consumer product, but you need
to capture someone's face while they're wearing the VR headset, which makes it
even harder. Since VR headsets already touch your face, I would imagine the
product would have to be some kind of extension of that - a larger contact
area filled with sensors that reconstruct your expression perfectly.

~~~
toufka
High Fidelity [1] (Second Life v2) does this already. It's still early beta,
but they've got the ability to map a user's face in real time with enough
data-density to transmit emotion, and facial characteristics good enough to
recognize a person by their avatar.

You are correct, that currently the same camera that does the facial analysis
(macbook camera) precludes the VR headset - so you either get to see another
in full VR, or you get to transmit your expression in HD. The device to do
both is not yet here.

[1] [http://highfidelity.io/](http://highfidelity.io/)

~~~
sixQuarks
The founder of Second Life gave a live demonstration of this last night at the
Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meetup. I didn't realize how important
capturing these small facial gestures was until I saw it myself.

~~~
sergiotapia
Link?

------
brezina
beautiful PR execution by the Oculus/FB teams. They knew this acquisition
would anger members of the community, and they timed this hire/announcement so
as to quiet the predicted backlash. Brilliant execution.

~~~
jblow
Actually, no, this is just the timing with which things happened.

Mike Abrash still worked at Valve last week.

~~~
maccard
So you think this just all happened in the last week?

------
npinguy
If Michael Abrash is happy, then John Carmack is happy.

If those two are happy, HN should be happy.

Maybe this Facebook thing won't be so bad after all.

~~~
colmvp
It's almost like people need to give decisions some time in order to actually
see the results instead of jumping to the conclusion that it'll be a failure.

~~~
gfodor
most of the response wasn't concluding failure but fearing the future. i think
many people think VR is too important a technology ("The Final Platform") to
be in the hands of a single corporate interest. we'll see i guess if that fear
is turns out to have been well placed.

------
swang
This shouldn't change your view point either way if you hated the fb
acquisition or were fine with it.

What I mean is the people generally angry about the acquisition was not due to
the personnel but Facebook itself so this should change nothing. All this
shows was the Oculus was already going to get Abrash and that Facebook decided
this would be better to announce after they got acquired.

~~~
luckyno13
I am glad someone else sees it this way. Some people are too damn wishy-washy.
All the things people were griping about 4 days ago when FB bought OR could
still happen.

I still dont want FB owned hardware in my house :shrug:

------
MattGrommes
Man, I'm now simultaneously more excited than ever about Oculus and more
fearful that FB will do something to screw up this chance.

I'm choosing optimism.

~~~
daviding
I agree, in that I don't know what will happen but it will be big and
glorious, and _something_ will now happen - there's too many great minds and
too much money in this now for it just to flub out quietly.

In every OR announcement recently I see references to the SnowCrash Metaverse.
Before we all start to rent shipping containers and become the 'greatest sword
fighters in the world', I worry if this fictional ideal isn't a distraction to
getting this done or not. Before we can buy OR consumer kits that work as well
as the potential seems to hint at (and yes I have tried and was amazed by
Crystal Cove) then it seems such a long and lofty goal. It feels like Physics
301 class entrants aiming for Warp capability or something.

It would take something like a Facebook userbase and scale, the fathers of 3D
game programming and a convergence of high definition mobile consumer
electronics to all come together at one time for it to happen.

Oh.

------
Tiktaalik
You can see why games people are irritated. I'm getting a strong impression
that at this point that Oculus is moving away from being a games oriented
company.

If I was a game studio building a VR game with an Oculus kit, I'd be
continuing to work on it, but I'd be calling Sony and trying to get in line
for a Morpheus.

~~~
iends
They have Michael Abrash and John Carmack working at the same company. I don't
see how 'games people' won't be super excited.

~~~
stonemetal
Abrash was working on VR at Valve, and was kind of my only hope for VR after
Oculus went FB. Now my VR hopes are crushed. Oh well, maybe next decade.

~~~
gfodor
VR is going to happen, it just might not be what you wanted. This "next
decade" talk is bs, this hasn't set "back" VR, it has _maybe_ altered the path
that VR ends up taking. But it definitely accelerated it, whatever that path
ends up being.

I'm nervous that in the long run this sets up VR to be a closed platform, but
I guess we'll see. Maybe a closed platform is better than no platform at all,
which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought
oculus.

~~~
EpicEng
> it just might not be what you wanted

In this case "you" means "video game enthusiasts." Most non-gamers that I know
are not even aware of Oculus and they're not even thinking of VR. The gamers
were the people behind these projects. The gamers are the ones who don't want
to be spied upon in order to be served targeted adds that they don't care to
see.

Perhaps, years from now, my wife will be logging onto FB, buying Farmville
credits, and shopping for home decor with her Oculus Rift, but that's not what
its original supporters envisioned. It's certainly not something that will be
mainstream next year.

I don't know, I can't say what FB intends to do with VR, but I can reason that
they want to please their shareholders, that they only know one way to make
money thus far, and that money is what drives them. That's fine, nothing wrong
with it, it's just not (as you say) the outcome we wanted.

>no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep
pockets never bought oculus

That seems like a leap or, at least, an assertion made in such non-comital
terms as to be rendered meaningless. I'm with you on the fear (anticipation)
of a closed platform, I just don't buy the addendum. If you couldn't tell, the
whole FB acquisition issue is not sitting well with me.

------
jzelinskie
First and foremost, everyone's priorities should be ensuring the success of
the VR industry; Oculus is basically the company to do that. Sony will do
their best with console hardware, but Oculus will set the pace for what's top
of the line for consumers. If Facebook ever steps in and does something the
[developer] community abhors, it should already be at the point where VR has
had success and there will be competition. I'm super excited to see Abrash at
Oculus; I just hope this doesn't mean Valve's slowing down on their work.
Valve's been working for a vendor-agnostic API/configuration for these devices
in their Steamworks APIs and I really hope that we don't end up fragmented by
varying vendor-specific APIs.

------
jtfrench
I think it's awesome Carmack and Abrash are working together again. I read
"Masters of Doom" back in the day, and it totally rocked my mind and took me
back to a time when I was too young to realize just how impactful Carmack was
on the industry that I enjoyed as a kid.

I just wouldn't have predicted that their comeback to the limelight would be
working for Facebook. In my eyes, they were "bigger" than that (obviously not
monetarily). They "meant" more to me. This is all subjective stuff I realize,
and yes I've heard a zillion times "how good it is for VR", but it kind of
indirectly gives a message that the best thing a genius who is _already
capable of changing the world_ can do is work for Facebook instead of do their
own thing.

Call me a softy, but something just warms my heart when I see smart people
stand out on their own, unswayed by the massive "power monoliths" surrounding
them, and STILL kick ass. That's what Facebook did! And that was awesome! I
just hope that spirit of entrepreneurship doesn't fade, and that geniuses know
their power lies within themselves — not in deep pockets of _any_ company.

Congrats to all involved though — I can only imagine what kind of crazy office
days are ahead. The sequel to "Masters of Doom" is yet to be written.

~~~
drawkbox
Tesla worked for Edison, still made great things. Who you work for rarely
changes who you are as a person if you already know who you are. Just now they
have funding and lots of momentum. I think people fear Facebook owning it as
scary because they know it will go somewhere with that much behind it rather
than it not happening.

~~~
jtfrench
>>>" Who you work for rarely changes who you are as a person if you already
know who you are"

Quite true.

>>> " I think people fear Facebook owning it as scary because they know it
will go somewhere with that much behind it rather than it not happening."

I don't really understand this sentence. Also, to be clear, I don't fear
Facebook owning anything (to me that seems pointless), I was just more
surprised by Carmack's/Abrash's choice —but of course its only surprising when
you don't know the details that occurred leading up to it, and the real thing
that made their decision. Perhaps there was an offer they couldn't refuse, and
so they jumped on it. People make it sound like Oculus wouldn't have continued
without Facebook though, which seems odd to me.

>> "Just now they have funding and lots of momentum."

This is the point I don't get. I hear this echo'd by everyone, but correct me
if I'm wrong, didn't they raise some $75M+? So is the point everyone is making
that to properly do VR, we need more than that ? Did they _not_ have enough
resources before?

(I don't know the answer to this, just curious)

~~~
drawkbox
Agreed with your message sorry if it seemed contrary, just mentioning a couple
different points.

On Facebook, it was intensely surprising, igniting the internet. However, when
I looked at it further I saw it being red hot in gaming previously (I was a
backer) with huge excitement but the last mile question still existed, how
does VR become mainstream? Well Facebook is hugely mainstream now and after
the announcement not only Facebook crowd heard about it but the financial
community / wall street. So now we have some serious momentum behind VR that
was always waning in the past and may have had trouble gaining in mainstream,
now in full growth mode.

Everyone under 40-50 at least if not more has been dreaming about this since
they were kids so the product base is untapped really but desired. Since
Facebook bought it, I think people realize it is kind of going 'mainstream'
and fear where it might end up. I say high tide rises all boats. All
industries can benefit and it is now 100% mainstream backed/aware with
Facebook, and investors interested, the gamers and developers were already on
board.

$75m for something like a mainstream culture change and the many products,
apps, games etc that need to be funded to make it happen is not enough. Plus
you needed to pay the very talented people away from their already winning
efforts to play. A game company can easily spend $50m on a single MMO or not
even ship (well at least a few years ago).

I think hardware is only part of the picture. Who knows maybe even an oculus
console / device / etc that Facebook will leverage into devices. I think
people are still thinking small and not looking 5-10 down where billions will
be needed... and billions more earned.

Facebook buying Oculus brought VR's groove back to the mainstream.

------
Arjuna
Wow, this is _awesome_ news!

Michael and John are reunited... I mean, recall in the Graphics Programming
Black Book, when Michael starts off in the introduction with, _" What was it
like working with John Carmack on Quake? Like being strapped onto a rocket
during takeoff – in the middle of a hurricane."_ [1]

Plus, Michael's quote from the announcement, _" I now fully expect to spend
the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can."_ Great things are
ahead!

If you've missed Michael's writings on VR, you are in for a real treat:

Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where It Might Be Going):

PDF:

[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2013.pdf)

PowerPoint:

[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2013.pptx)

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 1 – VR

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-
int...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-into-the-
future-of-wearable-computing-part-1-vr)

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 2 – AR

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-
int...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-into-the-
future-of-wearable-computing-part-2-ar)

When it comes to resolution, it's all relative

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-
resol...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resolution-
its-all-relative)

Latency – the sine qua non of AR and VR

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-
qua-n...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of-
ar-and-vr)

Raster-Scan Displays: More Than Meets The Eye

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster-scan-
displays-m...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster-scan-displays-
more-than-meets-the-eye)

Game Developers Conference and space-time diagrams

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/game-developers-
confer...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/game-developers-conference-
and-space-time-diagrams)

Why virtual isn't real to your brain

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-
real-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-to-your-
brain)

Why virtual isn't real to your brain: judder

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-
real-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-to-your-
brain-judder)

Down the VR rabbit hole: Fixing judder

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-
hol...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-
judder)

[1]
[http://twimgs.com/ddj/abrashblackbook/gpbbintr.pdf](http://twimgs.com/ddj/abrashblackbook/gpbbintr.pdf)

~~~
kranner
His talk on Persistence in VR was very informative for me:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2dQoeqVVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2dQoeqVVo)

------
revelation
I've checked Wikipedia to augment my knowledge of all things Michael Abrash,
and came across this quote of Gabe Newell:

 _been trying to hire Michael Abrash forever. [...] About once a quarter we go
for dinner and I say 'are you ready to work here yet?_

So between Gabe and John, Michael could probably be dining for free every day
of the week ;)

~~~
eco
Carmack also had to hound Abrash to come work for Id for over a year after
finally meeting him in person (Carmack had long respected Abrash for his
articles).

[http://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-
book/#foreword](http://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book/#foreword)

------
kar1181
The thing about Abrash, is not only is he brilliant, when he writes about
hugely complicated things, he does so in a way that makes the reader feel
smarter too.

That is an amazing gift to have.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Not just _feel_ smarter. I learned assembly language and rasterization from
his Dr. Dobbs articles.

EDIT> Man, I can still _smell_ those magazines, or maybe that's just the
basement smell.

------
noise
That was a very nicely written piece and he had me going until this part:
"We're on the cusp of what I think is not The Next Big Platform, but rather
simply The Final Platform – the platform to end all platforms"

The problem is that under FB, this will end up being the metafaceverse.com
platform, that you can only access under their umbrella, just as with the
current FB "platform". And you will be subject to their terms and conditions
within their walled garden both as a user and a developer.

That's not the kind of platform the internet needs. This won't be another WWW
but another AOL.

~~~
XorNot
Yes because I'm sure the Oculus Rift was the only VR system that can or ever
will ever be developed, and now Facebook is just going to ruin everything!

And also somehow - and you don't say how - they'll (1) invent a completely new
proprietary Displayport/HDMI connector just to keep people from using the
Oculus Rift with other things and (2) then go to the trouble of locking out
the positional sensors as well all so they can, apparently, lock-in people to
a platform and experience which - and this is the _really_ important part -
_doesn 't actually exist yet, and has yet to prove its profitability in
anyway_.

~~~
noise
Well all these threads are just pure speculation anyway. My point was that he
was hinting at a Facebook Platform style initiative that is very different
than just making an awesome VR headset. That's not to say there won't still be
value in the hardware outside of the FB ecosystem, I was just trying to call
out that particular aspect of what may come of this deal besides $$ to drive
HW development.

------
h1karu
Yea but isn't the idea of VR fundamentally flawed ? I mean I can imagine how
presence feels like magic when you're just sitting still looking around, but
is it really possible to move your avatar around without breaking presence ? I
mean your body won't feel the centripetal force, nor the tactile sensations so
it seems like any movement at all would break the illusion.. and if presence
is broken then you might as well just be playing a FPS on a nice monitor.

------
drivingmenuts
This is great for Oculus.

Doesn't change a my feelings toward Facebook one bit. They could wake up from
their drunken bender tomorrow, say "We bought what?" and Oculus would be dead
beyond any hope of resurrection by Monday.

If it was _anyone_ except Facebook, I would feel optimistic.

It's like Microsoft buying Apple. You _know_ the first thing they would is
burn that business to ground and dance gleefully in the ashes while their
lawyers geared up to sue everyone in the world.

------
comatose_kid
I am now waiting for the Zen of Oculus Programming.

~~~
pjmorris
That made me smile, thanks. [1]

[1] 'Zen of Assembly Language', Michael Abrash

------
JabavuAdams
Squeeeeeeee! Ultimate social proof.

It was John Carmack who sold me on the Oculus Dev Kit 1, now this.

------
mjn
I like William Gibson's comment about this article:
[https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/449650461881008128](https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/449650461881008128)

------
mcescalante
This is great timing and should settle the community after the uproar about
the FB acquisition this week.

It seems as though Valve has been fairly hush-hush about their VR ongoings
throughout what I'll call "Oculus' rising", so I'm curious for more detail as
to what went on internally at Valve with VR, and if Abrash joining Oculus
means more about their VR efforts and future (i.e. is Valve done even trying
to build something? Is some other partnership brewing between the two?)

------
netcan
The comments on this thread make me happy. Shows that the HN interest in
Oculus and the Facebook FUD feelings are cooing from a genuine place, the same
place that made so many peep kickstart Oculous in the first place: people want
this to exist and be as cool as it promises to be.

------
higherpurpose
This shows even more than Valve should've done its own VR headset. Now they
lost this guy.

~~~
acgourley
Perhaps when you have an effective monopoly on PC game sales you don't care
who does R&D on peripherals and hardware.

~~~
Jare
I don't think that's a good longterm strategy. The only way to go from there
is down.

~~~
wtallis
Down in market share, but you still get to take advantage of the growth of the
whole market, and without the big risk of trying to be the instigator of a
hardware revolution.

~~~
acgourley
Right and I feel like Valve has a hard time doing hardware projects thanks to
their structure. Hard to add lots of employees, and especially hard to have
low level employees doing tedious tasks. It seems like both of those need
something more hierarchical.

------
dylanrw
Initially I was a bit perplexed/dismayed when Facebook purchased Oculus. The
news that JC and MA are both now in the same company again? /me shuffles over
to buy some FB...

------
incision
Perfect move on multiple levels.

In the same way I thought look to John Carmack for any signs of trouble [0], I
can look at Abrash being signed as a sign that everything is fine.

On a related note, I always get a kick out of this Amazon review of Abrash's
book by Carmack [1].

0:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469414)

1:
[http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TWZFSQZ4RYLJ](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TWZFSQZ4RYLJ)

~~~
nitrogen
I still love that book. Anybody wanting to learn what low-level graphics
programming was like in the days of the 386, 486, and Pentium should buy that
book yesterday (or view the free online version
[http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-p...](http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-
programming-and-theory/graphics-programming-black-book-r1698)).

------
jksmith
Hopefully everyone on HN knows who Michael Abrash is AND has a copy of "Zen of
Assembly Language."

------
cwilson
Not only is this amazing news, but this is a PR master-stroke on the part of
Occulus/Facebook.

------
timfrietas
Suddenly the recent announcement of a Seattle Oculus office makes perfect
sense...

------
tdicola
Wow, I wonder what Valve is going to do. Maybe time to buy back the augmented
reality tech they squandered by firing Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson?

------
booop
I'm excited about these two working together, but this now reminds of when
Zynga hired many industry titans.

------
jfb
I initially read this as "Michael Arrington, Oculus Chief Scientist". That was
an amusing double take.

------
hosh
I think that answers the question on how serious Zuckerberg is about letting
Oculus have their way.

------
aantix
On a side note, this is just fantastically written announcement. Abrash is a
masterful storyteller.

------
z3phyr
This is the beginning of the golden era again. I will cry.

------
lawl
Just at the right time after the Facebook debacle.

What a coincidence.

~~~
leoc
No-one's pretending it's a coincidence, I think. Oculus had already said that
one benefit of the FB acquisition was that it would allow them to hire people
they hadn't been able to get before, while in the OP Abrash implies that he
hadn't been willing to join Oculus because he wasn't convinced that it could
survive without more capital.

------
yiedyie
Behold, HN was invaded by Oculus!

------
signa11
where is notch now ?

~~~
ProAm
This doesn't change any of the points Notch made in his statement. They are
all still valid concerns.

------
marcamillion
WOW....I can't remember when a blog post made me so excited about the future
of tech.

In one fell-swoop, all the naysayers about the FB acquisition were proven
wrong.

Love it!

~~~
fotbr
It still doesn't change the fact that it's owned by a company that many
despise and want nothing to do with, no matter how shiny their product may be.

I don't think anyone said FB was going to buy it and kill it. The fear, which
is still valid, is that FB will turn it into a data grabbing, ad-deliverance
product that's useless unless you're online and logged into your FB account.

~~~
judah
...like Google.

~~~
illuminate
I imagine plenty of the people peeved about the acquisition are also not Glass
fanatics.

