Good point, but he always came off as a hard-ass to me who liked to get into arguments and thrive on stress. I kinda see him as his own Jobs-Woz combo. I may be misreading him.

Yeah there's a lot of nuance there to be certain. Carmack is at least pretty Randian/Objectivist from what I've seen of his public statements, which deviates quite a bit from the traditional hippie left-leaning coder-type (though of course there are great developers all across the political spectrum).