this is sort of besides the point of the article, but why do people make businesses to sell them? as a scientist, i am not terribly interested in giving away the ideas that i have worked on for, typically, years. i become quite invested in them and continue to pursue them and evolve them until the funding runs out or new interests pop up that are worth replacing the old ones (typically this is an evolution as well). So to me, working hard for many years to build a company only to hand it to someone else seems like its not really a rewarding experience. I understand the part where people do this for money, but is there no personal investment? why would a business run the same without the person who did all the work doing it? i guess if the business is plumbing, and you have a list of clients who regularly call you to do plumbing, and then you don't want to do plumbing anymore because you are tired of it, you are really just selling the list of clients. and because your company has the brand recognition, you can say, well this guy is going to do your plumbing from now on but its still good old mnky9800n plumbing. still seems like a risky idea, but i guess if you are fully divested from the venture then what do you care? except for the likelihood that someone else will not care so much about mnky9800n plumbing as me.