> They absolutely do. They have the power to dilute your share to nothing, and they have the power to make special deals which cut you out of receiving anything.

This is an exaggeration. Founders/officers don't have the power to dilute the common shareholders "down to nothing" unless they believe it is best for the shareholders. All officers have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders, and can be sued if they violate this.

People get confused because in cases like this the company sells for $100 million and the investors get something, the founders get something and employees screwed. Then they take to leap to say employees ALWAYS get screwed! The truth is, if your company raises $150 million and sells for $100 million, its a fire sale. If you are an employee, you are never going to get anything in a fire sale, so you had no reason to expect anything in the first place. As an employee, you will only get paid with equity if the company grows REALLY REALLY BIG. If the company isn't growing, or isn't growing fast, employees not get anything. This isn't a scam, this isn't some founder trick, its just the way companies work. If the company isn't growing REALLY REALLY FAST, leave!

Yes, it is sleazy for the founders to be showing a document with a "what-if" valuing the company at 5B when it ends up selling for 100M. But as an employee you must be able to differentiate between a 5B company vs a 100M company, that is literally a 50x difference. If you can't, how can you possibly complain?

"This is an exaggeration."

No, it's not. We're literally in a comment section about that very thing happening.

"If you are an employee, you are never going to get anything in a fire sale, so you had no reason to expect anything in the first place."

Bullshit. The leaders of the company got quite a bit, so no, it is not unreasonable to expect those that are actually doing the work to get something.

You are trying to excuse these shenanigans as perfectly acceptable, and all it's doing is coming off as saying that employees should just shut up and deal. But you're not giving anyone any reason why they should agree to these shitty terms; why they should bust their ass just to make some founder rich while they get stuck with nothing.

And then you have the absolute gall to blame this on the employees, saying that it's their fault they didn't leave in time. As if it's somehow their fault that the founder was a scumbag who fucked them over? And as if that the vast, vast majority of startups aren't doing the exact same thing?

You have no defense for any of these actions. The blame rests solely on the founders who sold out those that worked hard for them. And I really, really, really hope that these stories get around, so that it makes things incredibly hard for scumbag founders to try and deceive hard working people into working for worthless equity.

> The leaders of the company got quite a bit, so no, it is not unreasonable to expect those that are actually doing the work to get something.

It is unreasonable to expect it, because that isn't how the law works. The employees can complain and file lawsuits all they want, but they'll probably lose. It's a fire sale with retention bonuses for the officers by the acquiring company. That is all very standard stuff that the courts of law will not overturn as unfair unless there was some fraud that goes beyond what was written in the story. A founder selling a very optimistic viewpoint of their company's future is not against the law.

But guess what, if you are buying that viewpoint and trusting the founders, that's on you. As an employee you have the power to do 2 things: not join companies run by sleazy people and quit companies that are going poorly. If you don't exercise either of those options, you are leaving yourself wide open to be screwed.

And look, if you want to sit back and tweet at how horrible these founders are, go for it. I do think bad behavior like this should be called out as a massive signal to any future employees not to work for companies started by these sleazeballs. But don't talk about how silicon valley is a rigged game that employees cannot win. Silicon valley right now is a fucking gold rush for employees. There are lots of great companies out there paying lots of money to software engineers who take the time to find them. This company was not one of them, and the employees gave up a lot of value working at some shit-ass company instead of finding a good one.

The entirety of your posts on this topic have come down to, "Either bend over and take it, or leave the company, in which case you get fucked out of your hard earned compensation as well."

"But don't talk about how silicon valley is a rigged game that employees cannot win."

Why not? This is not the first story we've heard of this, and it won't be the last. In fact, I'd say stories like this are far, far more common. So yes, I will keep beating the drum that the game is rigged, until it isn't. Because it absolutely is, and you have to be incredibly blind, or benefitting from the rigged game, to claim it isn't.