There's a definite normalization of coded socialization throughout the business world and most any occupation. It emerges from the same quality that makes founders see their business as a "child" - they are going to protect it, and usher you towards similarly protecting it, because that is the thing parents do above all else. That isn't wrong - lots of folks fall in love with ideas.

If a person should come in that room, though, and make the case that they are the child, you start to get this sort of dysfunction. And when you wield a lot of authority, it's easy to fall into a child's mindset and never get called on it, and there is nothing innocent about what happens in those scenarios. You can pathologize it with various terms of the psyche, call them predatory or whatnot, but the underpinning of it is that these people are good at turning people into doting chaperones, and they will seek out such wherever they go and twist the rules as needed so that their own mistakes are "oopsies" while those of others are "unforgivable".

The only counterbalance I know of is to be so committed to an idea of your own that you immediately drive away anyone looking to engage you in this way. Then you will be bad at "socializing", but good at finding others similarly committed to ideas.