I started building

I started building virtual reality headset prototypes when I was 14 or 15. And then I built the first prototype of what I called the Oculus Rift at 16. And then I formally turned it into a company when I was 18. Launched the product when I was 19, and then sold the company a few years later to Facebook for 2 billion dollars. So it was kind of a crazy arc for me. Wow. Yeah, that was I was putting myself through school. Did you work with Carmack? Well, Carmack was one of my heroes growing up. Love that dude. And it was one of these crazy things where the universe kind of brought us together. I was working on my VR technology, and nobody was paying attention to VR back then. It was kind of a crazy person thing. Nobody was paying attention what I was doing. But I was posting about it on this internet forum. And then John Carmack started posting on that same forum asking for help modifying his own Sony head-mounted display to reduce the latency. And so I gave him a bunch of input on why he couldn't do it, why it was an impossible project, and because I have been trying to do the same thing. And then he ended up seeing the work I was doing on the Oculus Rift, and he said, "Hey, Palmer, can I buy one of these from you?" I said, well, I'm not really selling these yet, but, I'd be happy to lend it to you for free. And so I sent it to him. He ended up writing a review and posting it on his blog, and said it was the best VR experience the world has ever seen. He introduced me to Sony. They tried to hire me to run their VR research and development lab. I turned them down. They doubled the offer. I turned that down. And then John was kind of the first guy who got any public attention for me, where everyone was like, "Oh, John Carmack says this is important, then this must be important." And then, if you could believe it, two years later, after I started Oculus and started selling these, he actually left in software and became the CTO of Oculus. So we got— then I had the incredible opportunity to work with one of my childhood heroes as my CTO. What year was that? That was 2012. Okay. So although he came on the podcast I think 2016 and he brought one. So yeah, he joined in 2013. I think it was June of 2013. So about a year after I started Oculus is when he joined as CTO.