Creating something and working with something established are two different things requiring different skills. Let's say you are an inventor, you just made, sa

Creating something and working with something established are two different things requiring different skills. Let's say you are an inventor, you just made, say, a new type of coffee maker. You just did some prototypes, worked out the details, made it safer and more convenient, have it make better tasting coffee, considered mass production, etc... You filed the patent and now have a great product on your hands, and now what? Are you going to do value engineering, process scaling, etc... and build your career on that? These are interesting topics, but maybe that's not what you are good at, and you prefer inventing, so you will sell that patent to someone who is more into mass production and optimization and work on your next invention. Businesses are like inventions, some people prefer and are better at creating new businesses, others are more about keeping things stable and profitable on the long term. The work the founder has done does not necessarily make him better for growing the business and making profits.