That’s overly harsh Kentucky Headhunter – for a few reasons. The previous owners might have been the ones who built the firm from nothing – which required a different set of skills and is far from easy. They could have taken over a smaller company and grew it in good times – also a different set of skills.

Still not fully foolish but it’s a natural human tendency to get tunnel vision and just stay in “fire fighting” mode dealing with day to day problems and never quite getting around to making changes that improve the long term position of the firm.

Finally, Lemonis has a huge edge in that if he comes in, puts in a bunch of changes to improve the business and it fails he’s out his investment but he’s not ruined. The previous owners are going to be much more risk averse.

There should be a tv show following up on what actually happens After The Profit

Seems like the previous owners would always end up looking like idiots if his fixes are fairly simple and straight-forward. And the people who did business with them would maybe feel foolish by association.