
John Carmack on setting deadlines - waivek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUmG-PCDsgM&t=2125s
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wruwew8uu9
it's more about working in the knowledge that time is limited and valuable,
and therefore to restrain one's perfectionism

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waivek
If the timestamp doesn't work, he covers this topic at the 0:35:25 mark.

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waivek
The whole talk is interesting. Here's a timestamp of the different topics
covered (courtesy of u/1wd on r/programming):

00:27 Introduction by Prof. Keith Robinson

03:32 Start talk "Innovation and Invention"

04:51 "why did you think that you could solve all of these problems?"

06:48 Moore's law -> new opportunities (semiconductors)

07:39 solution space is vast

08:22 very few things are at theoretical peak

09:57 it's like an infinite to-do list

10:36 be open to multiple innovations at the same time

11:24 Nassim Taleb's book "Anti-fragile": strong upsides but minimal downsides
(asymmetric)

13:52 ideas don't come from staring into space and waiting. mechanical process
to farm ideas

15:25 work-life balance is fine but there are benefits to obsession

15:55 I critique ideas for free

17:18 Robert Heinlein: "good idea is worth one bottle of scotch"

18:23 process of turning ideas into reality

\- ability to experiment: where smart kid can experiment, interesting things
happen (Armadillo aerospace)

\- ability to to score: random ideas to serious impacts when datasets
available for public testing and scoring, competitions. that which you measure
improves.

22:37 worst case: takes decades to run experiments (tokamak fusion research)

23:04 few innovations without a lot of people (cryptocurrency, solar cells and
batteries)

25:00 vast majority of industries are under engineered -> Elon Musk the boring
company

27:07 best person in entire world for particular task -> telepresence dream
teams, hopes for virtual reality

27:49 capital is important, engineers are expensive

28:39 scapegoats: regulatory, investors

29:48 pockets of stability and risk aversion (US rocket launches. )

33:51 XPrize

35:25 time does really matter: too early to succeed or too late to matter. I
have walked away from "when it's done". games started taking longer and longer
to write, entire tastes in gaming can change, cannot expect a design to
survive that long. healthiest startups know their runway is limited, limited
amount of time.

38:15 Questions

39:03 Q1: How may emerging technologies like virtual reality change industries
that are slow to adopt technology, like the legal industry?

40:16 Q2: How do you go about prioritizing and choosing your projects. Skill
acquisition: How long do you give yourself to acquire a skill?

44:02 Q3: The theme in your in your talk was failure and sort of the ability
to fail which leads to innovation. If that's part of the process how do you
know when to give up on an idea and move on?

45:23 Q4: What are your views on blockchain and innovations in this industry
that we might not expect or might not be thinking about right now?

47:15 Q5: With respect to the aerospace industry, what are some of the largest
legal and regulatory challenges involved with starting a space travel company?

51:05 Q6: personal questions about how you work. "There's nothing wrong with a
little obsession, especially to get things done. work-life balance. you do
have a family, a wife and kids. how do you manage being a husband, being a
father with the work that you do?

55:27 Q7: What is your favorite game that you've that you've worked on? What
was the most challenging game?

56:58 Q8: For the students out there that are aspiring developers or aspiring
lawyers that might have an idea that they think is innovative, do you have any
last words of advice for them?

Source:-

[https://www.reddit.com/comments/86hs0x/-/dw6fsms/](https://www.reddit.com/comments/86hs0x/-/dw6fsms/)

