My point was that when the company is the founders, it's not really possible to separate loyalty to the founders and loyalty to the company. At that point, it's

My point was that when the company is the founders, it's not really possible to separate loyalty to the founders and loyalty to the company. At that point, it's very possible that the founders/company will act out of loyalty to you rather than purely out of self-interest, at least until their ability to do so runs out. And I disagree vehemently that one should feel no loyalty to their startup. I know of at least one startup that has run out of money without sacking their employees, and the employees agreed to waive their pay until the startup was able to get its cashflow going again. Had they all immediately bailed as you seem to imply they should have, that startup would be dead now. Instead, I believe its current valuation is around a billion. I would hope my employees would do the same for me.