You make a good point regarding staff being paid in shares. If things were tanking internally, you would expect them to cash out and quit.

However, the analogy of DOS not being picked up by IBM does not fit this picture, in my opinion. The pace of change in computing and the uncertainty of what would be useful in the future was not crystal clear when DOS came out. Contrast that with the oncology scene where reported recaf numbers are a definite improvement over conventional tests. The value of this test if the data is valid is clear, and a business person would have to be a few cards short of a deck not to realize it.