I tend to agree with you, and he probably thought he was acting in the company’s best interests, but I also think there’s an argument to be made that he was negligent in doing his market research to ostensibly prevent what transpired.
Additionally, this wasn’t his first time toying with that “pay to buy, pay to use” model. He’d expressed past desires to implement that model, so it could be argued that this was his pet project that he wanted to see happen, and his hubris blinded him to the dangers.