But the founders of the most wildly successful bakeries with the most locations seem to have pulled cookies out of their collective asses. And the PE business model is to buy a company, or a stake in it, and treat that money like a loan. The company pays it back. But the PE firm goes in with the intention of selling the company in a few years, after it has wrung as much cash as possible out of the operation to get the company’s shareholders a return that is higher than the stock market. That’s why PE investments usually mean opening lots of locations, inflating costs of goods, and enshittifying the product.