There’s a whole-ass archetype among founder-owners of successful companies who stick with them long-term, that looks like this. It’s not all of them, by any means, but it’s definitely one sort. In ordinary circumstances it manifests as a preference for maintaining control over making moves that might, by some measures, be better (improving business success, or limiting liability, say) and a string of quiet and maybe fishy-seeming but not exactly red-flag dust-ups; when a big enough obstacle (especially to that whole “control” thing) shows up and throwing their weight around can’t make it go away, though, things can get real dicey.