Well, you are kind of a dolt for doing side work on company time with company equipment and expecting anything other than the company expecting ownership/equity of the results.
I would find it hard to believe that Zenimax was unaware of what was going on.
Also, you are not always in control of who your corporate overlords will be. They can be decent, then sell, then new owners are not cool. Happens all the time.
I think it’s fair to call John Carmack a visionary who has moved his industry forward multiple times. I think while some investors and business owners did not benefit (as much as they could have) from his work, the rest of the gaming world absolutely did.
Life hasn't turned out too bad for Carmack.
Maybe he sees those meetings, depositions, and what not as part of the price of that success.
He is one of the very few people in the industry (not just gaming, but technology in general) who manages to move the entire industries forward not once, but many times, and consistently so. All while remaining true to himself, caring about what he thinks matters the most, and not jumping head deep into corporate games just for the sake of it.
Maybe I am fanboying a bit here, but after reading Masters of Doom (a biographical piece on the early life of both Johns [Carmack and Romero], how they started ID Software together, and how it all turned out; heavily recommended for everyone here), it feels like I am experiencing an even more exciting sequel to it happening in real life in front of my eyes.