I hate to say it but honestly, kinda, yeah... I do think that. Has he done anything significant since the early 1990s? All I've known him for since then is wasting a bunch of years spinning wheels at a virtual reality toy company and posting on Elon Musk's child pornography platform. I would not look to Carmack for tech inspiration in 2026, personally.
With respect to Carmack I completely agree. There is too much appeal to authority with respect to him solely based on him making an impressive game (with the help of some other genius level programmers eg abrash) nearly 40 years ago.
