Quite honestly listening to the recording, reading extensively, one can sum this up as bad business, documentation which no one appears to have, or willing to reveal. This is all on buyer/seller nothing to do with Witnesses, interested parties at all.
Being in business to make money is not a crime, what needs to be proactively found is either documentation or code to substantiate, no social media scrapping would hold firm (to my knowledge).
It would be very interesting if Justin put some of his people in for a period to learn before making a hasty decision. The holder of the purse with plenty cash to back him, learning something new it may make him a lot more in returns.
Negative media most definitely is backing him into a corner, which actually you don't want (he holds Steemit.Inc). Level headed business approach is needed, he is a businessman would negotiate if a positive way forward was presented with his share in Steem apparently sold.
@apshamilton wrote an interesting piece on how this may possibly change the way in teaching blockchain in the future.