As someone who’s worked at Consensys, I can confirm most (if not all) of the statements here. I think people on the outside look at Consensys and see a huge, monolithic megacorp operating like some sentient entity and moving chess pieces all over the board. But it’s far from the truth–you only need to see how many teams are there to understand how difficult it is coordinate the collusion @MrSilly is describing. (Pretty sure I met less than 10% of the company’s employees at the time I left.)
A decent number of people have the same notion of the EF, too. If you don’t see the EF as a loosely organized group of individuals, and perceive it as some centralized organization instead, then it makes sense to say the EF is coordinating to interfere with the EIP process (as some have indeed said in the past)…even if that’s untrue.
Besides, people talk about Matt/Sam holding CSI stocks so much–even when former employees are filing lawsuits to make sure their equity retains its value. Not sure what to make of that information–but I think it can at least (rightfully) dilute the strong assumption that the promise of equity is enough to get core developers to play secret agents.