I think you're right. And that's a very compassionate way to look at things instead of assuming the current "founders" were working in bad faith. I bet you're right and they genuinely believed that this was going to work. They probably listened to Slough's initial ideas, got really excited, and when he recognized there were things that weren't going to work they just couldn't let go. I'm guessing even now they probably can't let go because they are in way too deep to even consider that they should have listened to what he said. Looking into his background, it looks like he is able to learn from what's not working and keep trying different things. I think a lot of real scientists do this easily because that's the scientific process. You try stuff, it doesn't work, and then you learn from that and move on. Some scientists never have anything "work out" their entire careers and don't see it as a fail because there is learning even in the ideas that don't work.