>> This is a huge violation of the explicit covenant of startups: “we all lose a decade of our lives trying, or we get fabulously rich together.” There is no s

>> This is a huge violation of the explicit covenant of startups: “we all lose a decade of our lives trying, or we get fabulously rich together.” There is no such covenant and it's great that the Toptal CEO is there to remind everyone. If you work for a startup and are not getting real shares (options and other complex instruments don't count) then you will be screwed. The Toptal case is not special; it's the norm in most places. The Toptal CEO may have screwed over a handful of his employees, but in doing so, he sent a clear message which may save a million other engineers from a similar fate. If the employees are really upset about this, they can work together to bring down his company from underneath him. If they're too weak to do this, then they deserve nothing.