[mwfunk]

Sad but true. :( Empathy and maturity (intellectual or otherwise) develop independently of technical skills. A lot of people need to confront a lot of failure and not getting what they want out of life before they feel compelled to look in the mirror. If I was considered a VR wunderkind at such a young age and had so much early success with a cutting-edge company like Oculus, I would probably also be cursed with thinking I'd figured it all out already, and that my challenges were all external and business- or engineering-related.

Another way to think of it is as another variant of "success hides failure", although in this case it's his business successes hiding his personal failures from himself. It's like the pattern of conceited or arrogant people so often being deeply insecure- ironic but sad, and really obvious from the outside looking in, but not at all apparent to the individual.