My jaw dropped when I read this guy wrote ffmpeg AND QEMU!!? Thats insane levels of talent and capability.
I remember looking through the source for QEMU and it appeared monstrous in its scale. Dude is a legend, no wonder Carmack is complimenting him.
Isn't that how it is supposed to work ? Stroke of genius (over and over again) to get something working given constraints of the day followed by hundreds of engineers who will improve on the foundations, basically like Wozniak ?
Honestly, the ability to pass off a project to long-term maintainers that don't immediately get overwhelmed, collapse, or explode is perhaps his greatest skill.