It's possible Neumann was some sort of idealistic hippie who believed his own BS and got in over his head.

But I have trouble squaring that with extremely hard-nosed moves like cashing out $700 million, and getting loans from the company to buy buildings to lease back to the company.

Hippies are at least as greedy as anyone else.

When you #define hippie whoever you want it to mean then I guess anyone is as greedy as anyone else.