I agree. There is a culture that founders are special but everyone else is replaceable which makes it self-fulfilling. If a founder leaves, it's bad and VCs won

I agree. There is a culture that founders are special but everyone else is replaceable which makes it self-fulfilling. If a founder leaves, it's bad and VCs won't invest in the startup - However, if a top engineer leaves, no big deal, they're only an engineer... For me personally, I have a really bad perception of incubators, venture capitalists and big tech corporations. It's all a zero sum game to increase concentration of wealth in the hands of the few but there is little meritocracy behind it. In a high traction startup, founders are often the dumbest people in the company but they get treated like they're genius visionaries. I've even heard really smart colleagues/engineers say stuff like "A good CEO needs to be enthusiastic and shouldn't be too smart" - For me this sentence means that we've accepted that the system is not a meritocracy but we've found a way to rationalize it.