It was a funny scene but it was kind of silly if Paulie goes way back to Johnny Boy to his teens that Carmine would be completely unaware of who he was. It's not like there are a ton of made guys in Jersey NY would be dealing with to begin with, but Paulie would have been a main guy in the span of long he'd been involved. At least known to NY as they're in the same orbit. If for nothing else just for NY to be aware of the power structure over there in case some shit popped off and they had to make a power move.

But boy, did John play Paulie, ha. Which was the point of the scene.

Though it is kind of weird that Paulie never once had an interaction with Junior. I can only think of twice they were in a scene together in the whole run, but no dialogue between them.