I get you! I was bigger into copyright some 20-30 years ago myself when we would've all been on Slashdot.
To that end, I was WRONG in my post, I think I was conflating two things, and for that, I'm sorry. I was certainly thinking in part about Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley (2001). That was the case that decided that the software DeCSS was illegal, and you could distribute the software. I was thinking that while the court did agree with Universal over the software, that it did not find that breaking DRM on a product you owned was inherently illegal. (I legit think this was a "take" at the time. Probably wouldn't hold up in court these days, sadly.) And I did find that years later the Library of Congress offered exemptions for breaking DRM on some hardware (vehicles, medical devices,) but I believe even those were temporary and have since lapsed.
Sorry I spoke so surely about something I was wrong about.
In the quotes pulled from the original interview, he talks about how, thanks to early career specialization, “there is no fertile ground for these types of all-rounder game directors to grow.” It makes sense to me. With hundreds of people developing a game, and everyone starting at "ground level," there are so many levels to rise through before you get to lead a game, and even begin to grow in that role.
Compare that to a few decades ago. Carmack, Romero, and most of the Doom team were in their 20s when they made Doom. Or look at Chrono Trigger. Kazuhiko Aoki was the producer, and it was his 7th game at the age of 34. It was designer Hironobu Sakaguchi's 17th game at 33.