You're arguing a different point. The old CEO claims it's his absence that caused the failure, not the presence of the new CEO. You're arguing that it's the presence of the new CEO that caused the failure. GP is pointing out that if the absence of the old CEO is what caused the company to fail as the old CEO claims, and not the actions of the new CEO, then it wasn't in good shape to start with.
Ah. That's a bit more sane for sure. Although with some big caveats. A founder can be crucial for a long time, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a tradeoff. You don't want to spend time operationalizing the business before it's stable for example. That's just a waste of time. The board very well could be mistaken on which stage the business is in.
You're seriously claiming a bad leader can't destroy a company/organization/project/country?