Joining the Thrillionaires.
Elon Musk is not the only rocket entrepreneur in the hood.
A less public rocket man is John Carmack. Before he began
launching rockets, he created the popular computer games
DoomandQuake.
A year younger than Elon, many parts from Carmack’s
younger life resembled Elon’s. With divorced parents, the
young Carmack read books and comics. Like Elon, Car-
mack had a dark childhood and was bullied in school.
After his schoolteacher introduced him to the Apple II
computer, Carmack became mesmerized by the computer
revolution. He enjoyed playing the gamesSpace Invaders
andAsteroids, and he sold his own computer games.^122
Through the new medium Internet, Carmack discov-
ered the different sides of chemical engineering. While
both Elon and Carmack used their chemical skills to create
rockets, Carmack also used his skills to make explosives so
he could steal Apple II computers. But the police caught
him and his friends in the act. “Boy behaves like a walking
brain with legs... no empathy for other human beings,” was
the conclusion of his psychology evaluation.^122
While Elon discovered himself in Canada by coming up
with the three things that would affect the world, Carmack
discovered himself while serving his sentence in a juvenile
home. Carmack realized he didn’t need to steal computers