Read that and thought of Ashton Tate which made dBase. The original entrepreneur, George Tate, died of a heart attack. The new CEO, Ed Esber, famously told dBase inventor, Wayne Ratliff, that he wasn't any more important than the guy loading the trucks. Ratliff and a few key developers left. A few years later Esber didn't have a clue what happened to his company which self destructed.
Sad thing is Ratliff started his own database company with some fairly innovative technology for the time. But he was an engineer with no company building skills and it didn't go anywhere.