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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9221267" data-attributes="member: 907">From what I understand in various interviews and such, Adkison actually never owned a controlling interest in Wizards of the Coast (because the lawyer he used when forming it was not so good and had some interesting ideas). He got compensation for his job as CEO in stock to a large degree so it wasn't like he was going to the poorhouse, but he didn't have a controlling interest. On top of that, many others who worked for Wizards, either as employees or freelancers, got compensated with stock – particularly in the early days, before Magic really took off.So in the late 90s, Wizards was doing real well, not just off Magic but also off Pokémon. So a bunch of the shareholders told him they wanted to cash out, and given that he couldn't buy them out himself his options were either to take the company public or sell it. And that's why Wizards was sold to Hasbro for a chunk of money that made its former shareholders more than happy, and would eventually let Lisa Stevens found Paizo.</blockquote>