TL;DR Ken Williams had had a bad experience early on where the company was nearly bankrupt from a bad move, and he thought selling to a conglomerate would bulle

TL;DR Ken Williams had had a bad experience early on where the company was nearly bankrupt from a bad move, and he thought selling to a conglomerate would bulletproof the company, and was something of a duty to his shareholders. If the article is to be believed, they did so without being permitted to do due diligence on their buyer.