> news came out that they only sold their shares because of this.
Why would this be kept a secret? Why doesn't Sequoia, upon realizing their conflict of interest, say "Attention everyone: we have to sell this investment for conflict-of-interest reasons. We can't reasonably give you our board seat and other influence, just the financial state, so we will sell it for a large discount."
Why would any of that tarnish Sequoia's reputation or open them up to litigation? (I mean, other than the minor reputational hit they have already taken for not doing thorough due diligence, which is being revealed regardless.)
Fair point, I am sure they have people much smarter than me in charge of making decisions like that. I am purely speculating at this point but that route could also lead to just being dragged out (if the offer was made public).
There might be a lot of reasons, and I am sure there would have weighed all their options and gone with this decision.
Why would this be kept a secret? Why doesn't Sequoia, upon realizing their conflict of interest, say "Attention everyone: we have to sell this investment for conflict-of-interest reasons. We can't reasonably give you our board seat and other influence, just the financial state, so we will sell it for a large discount."
Why would any of that tarnish Sequoia's reputation or open them up to litigation? (I mean, other than the minor reputational hit they have already taken for not doing thorough due diligence, which is being revealed regardless.)