I hate parroting cliched narratives, but John Carmack has always been focused on the engineering side of products, to the partial neglect of workplace dynamics or market awareness. I could recall interview/presentation examples from him and other ID ID founders if anyone is interested.

John characterizes the Meta/Realitylabs failure as a workplace efficiency problem, when he knew full well that the company was antithetical to the hacker/hobbyist ethic when they bought out Occulus. VR is much more enthusiast than a smartphone or social-media site, thus the FAANG post-startup mentality doomed their VR venture just as with Amazon's games and high budget TV shows. Valve and GabeN have had much more success paying some respect to the hacker mentality or otherwise respecting the userbase when applicable.

I wonder if the Zenimax lawsuit was the reason for Carmack sticking around after the acquisition.