Might be good to estimate the date of the recommendation - as the interview where Carmack mentioned this was in 2023, a rough guess might be 2021/22?
I like this format and framing of "90% of what matters" and someone should try doing it with other subjects.
List of 27 papers (supposedly) given to John Carmack by Ilya Sutskever: "If you really learn all of these, you’ll know 90% of what matters today."
The list has been floating around for a few weeks on Twitter/LinkedIn. I figure some might have missed it so here you go.
Regardless of the veracity of the tale I am still finding it valuable.
https://punkx.org/jackdoe/30.html