> How is it demonstrable that they aren't worth $1m per year?

Probably because of this:

> How does any company burn $36 billion on a headset they got handed a prototype for?

That's confusing the decision to work on something with the quality of the folks working on it. Brilliant engineers often work on things which are risky from a market perspective. It doesn't make them less brilliant at engineering when it turns out there isn't a market for the thing.

John Carmack appears to be brilliant. I'd guess he would admit the VR market didn't turn out as hoped.

> he would admit the VR market didn't turn out as hoped

That's not what he said though. What he said is that Meta is basically incompetent.

And from a leadership perspective it might well be / might have been. I don't think he ever criticized the quality of engineers there.