I would like someone to confirm my thoughts on the following sentence, to see if I am on the right track or am just in fantasy lala land, going off on a tangent:

"Because Malcolm had never become a cutthroat CEO, he had few enemies."

I am pondering about the above sentence, in terms of the tense used.

I think the sentence is trying to convey that sometime in the past, Malcolm had few enemies, and this is because going further back into the past from that point, Malcolm was never a cutthroat CEO (he never became one during that time).

Compare the above sentence with the following sentence, written in simple past tense: "Because Malcolm never became a cutthroat CEO, he had few enemies." In this case, I think that Malcolm had few enemies in his past in general, and this is because he never became a cutthroat CEO in his life. "Malcolm never became a cutthroat CEO" and "he had few enemies", both being simple past tenses, convey idea about the past in general, because there is no specific time mentioned in the past. So I think the two kind of "work separately" in terms of time -- the first fragment covers the entire past, and the second fragment does so as well -- so it is "redundant" in a sense. In addition, if the sentence is broken apart and written as two sentences, "Malcolm never became a cutthroat CEO. This is because he had few enemies," it seems to imply that the idea "he had few enemies" applies to his entire past, in contrast with the above sentence in past perfect tense -- so the two sentences (the past perfect tense one and the simple past tense one) seem to convey two slightly different ideas.

Furthermore, if the original sentence is broken into two sentences, it would be something like: "Malcolm had never become a cutthoat CEO. Thus, he had few enemies." Here, I think that despite being broken into two sentences, they still depend on each other -- because "Malcolm had never become a cutthroat CEO" leaves things hanging as a past perfect tense needs a reference point which wasn't given, and "Thus, he had a few enemies" would look like a simple past tense by itself only that the previous sentence "left things hanging" and it now serves to fill that hole (so correct me if I'm wrong but I'm saying although it looks like a simple past tense, it is actually not -- it is something that combines with the previous sentence to finish the past perfect tense).

Personally, I think the sentence written in past perfect tense is slightly better because it is more "localized" and the two fragments or pieces in the sentence work together more, to produce one concept as a whole. This was demonstrated when the simple past version was broken into two separate, independent sentences, revealing that they work well enough alone.

So, is that the reason why the original sentence is preferred and used?

Thanks for the post, the sentence was in fact from a documentary video on Malcolm Forbes. I think I get what you mean correctly, but let me just elaborate on my thinking process so I am not on a wrong track (correct any part that you notice is wrong): So it's a narrative, with the narrator "going" from the beginning time at which the story or biography begins to the end time at which Malcolm's life comes to an end as the video progresses. By "going", what I mean is that when the narrator talks about Malcolm and events surrounding him, he is essentially at a specific point of time in the past (with respect to now as in the present-reality now) -- determined by the content just before the narrator makes the comment. So I think it's better to use the past perfect tense, because in "Because Malcolm had never become a cutthroat CEO, he had few enemies," the time at which "he had few enemies" is determined by the "narrative time" that I just described -- the "now in the narrative." Had the past tense version of it used, "Because Malcolm never became a cutthroat CEO, he had few enemies," it wouldn't be making use of that specific points of time in the past that the narrative video by nature provides, so it wouldn't work well in such a video. Essentially, past perfect tense is really the perfect form to use in such a narrative video, and should be used as a general rule.