I don't think he ever was under his own control. In case you haven't noticed the common themes amongst the founders of every even slightly noteworthy imageboard out there, I'll give you a rundown: moot, kirt of 420chan, spazimon of 7chan, serv of operatorchan (handed the site over to out of the closet glowniggers in 2011), seisatsu of 4chon.net & uboachan, fattie nolegs/hotwheels of wizchan & 8chan & dergeneral of krautchan all founded their websites as teenagers and had great success, but have not been able to demonstrate any ability to put together any software or websites on their own subsequently. given the fast fame and influence that one can achieve by starting an imageboard, don't you think its strange that nobody over the age of 20 seems to have ever even tired to start their own imageboard, let alone found success in competing in the arena, when their supposed competition is teenagers with no demonstrable coding ability? Seem suspicious? Seems like someone behind the scenes probably owns all those kids, someone uncreative who keeps on reusing the "teenage hacker" meme from wargames for their patsys' backstories.