Interesting story. This seems a true story of the author? The author understands the characters of the people in the process of business. Understanding reality is not easy.
Not a situation that happened to me per se. More of a mix of situations that have happened to me and I've seen happen to people close to me aggregated into a single metaphor.
I've been working in startups since 2012 and this was a superbly crafted narrative that articulates so many of the odd circumstances that lead to inscrutable decisions in early stage companies...really well done!