No, not really. You learn this during your first round of fund raising. Once you give up controlling equity, the company is no longer yours. It’s easy to forget that it requires money to grow your company. If it’s not your money, it’s not your company…
Well, selling a business includes the parties signing a number of written contracts and agreements which, in theory, should persist beyond completion. So it’s really not as simple as you say, and certainly not just a simple case of looking at the cap table.
When someone is handing you gobs of money they will very likely strike out terms which limit their control. It’s like why you wouldn’t accept a car loan with an early payment penalty unless the terms were excessively good for you
You have a board of directors, you are at their mercy.. not the other way around.