It is super difficult to have a successful project that is genuinely decentralised.
The the founding entity needs to disappear (BTC) or be forcibly removed by a decentralised community (Hive).
Very few projects have achieved this. Even Ethereum is substantially controlled by a single person (Vitalik) and a single entity (Ethereum Foundation).
It is fortunate that Vitalik is such a great guy and genuinely committed to decentralisation. But he would really need to disappear for the decentralisation of Ethereum to be complete.
The Swiss Foundation model he pioneered works OK but has a lot of problems and the Foundation continues to have huge power in most such blockchains.
Companies as blockchain founders are much worse than the Swiss foundation model because they have their own interests which diverge from the best interests of the blockchain over time.
Been controlled by a centralized entity isn't a problem for EOS.
Block One was never here for it.
The problem was that the community never got the memo and destroyed the ways to self-funding (the inflation % supposed to go to WPS, the early RAM and premium names fee etc) expecting that B1 would add their funds to growth the ecosystem.
It took 2 years of pain to wake up!!!
The decision to not go against Block One directly was rational for some people at the time. Now that Dan is part of the community directly, I think more are ready to make changes and be self-directed.
I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that with the FIO Protocol. You can see the community wiki here: https://fioprotocol.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FC/overview
The centralized company that built the first version of the protocol essentially no longer exists and everyone works independently via active worker proposals evaluated by a steering committee with a budget approved by the foundation board which is selected via the existing board members through a straw poll vote by the token holders.