[anigbrowl]

First, note that Carmack was a cofounder of id; a good chunk of his precedent and history was doing exactly this sort of research work.

Which was (part of) the portfolio Zenimax was buying into when they acquired id. Zenimax spent about $105 million on that deal, of which Carmack presumably received a large chunk as a co-owner of the company. They put down fat money to own id and the IP that came out there.

Further, I don't think it's good that you can spend twenty years building a business (industry, more honestly) and then have some asshole suits screw you out of what should by right be a fun working semi-retirement. It's like spitting in the face of engineering's American Dream.

How are they screwing him? He could have just quit ID and gone to work on Oculus once he decided that that was the most exciting thing, it's not like he was depending on a biweekly paycheck from Zenimax to keep a roof over his head and put diapers on the baby. Nobody forced him to sell id to ZeniMax, I presume he and his partners did so because they all got very rich in the process.