There were quite a few of high-caliber individuals with equally impressive resumes in the organization to match Carmack's wisdom and ego.

The metaverse has really showcased that.

They finally have feet now, right?

Only light fun. I'm just a little perplexed at their progress and direction over the past 7-8 years. I don't understand how they can have so many high caliber people and put out...that.

First of all, AR/VR is a tough problem space, often for reasons not immediately obvious to common folk. Second, Facebook in my opinion is a wrong home for long-term efforts that may not bear fruit for many years, with its 6-month attention span of employee performance management and its "move fast and break things" culture (both of which clashed with the meticulous hardware-oriented Oculus culture). And finally, a significant portion of people working in AR/VR didn't believe in AR/VR as a product. Some were there for the gravy train, some were there for interesting OS work, some were there for bleeding-edge technology, but I'd say less than half would say "we're working on something that people will love and pay money for". To me it felt more like well-funded academia even and less like a startup (which it was supposed to be).

Hard to believe that, although maybe they considered their own resumes equally impressive.

There were many, many influential software projects done in the past that are not games. Some of the people responsible worked in AR/VR and drove its vision and technical roadmaps.