>I'm willing to wager that for every situation in which a founder/ceo turned down a healthy offer, and then went on to great success, that I can find at least one (if not two) in which mgmt. turned down an offer that, in hindsight, was actually quite lucrative.

Google's $6B offer for Groupon springs to mind, although I suppose some of the more prescient shareholders may have liquidated their holdings at the IPO and tripled up.