The personal attacks are obviously pretty off-base, given that companies like YCombinator actually help young hackers to actually retain more of what they creat

The personal attacks are obviously pretty off-base, given that companies like YCombinator actually help young hackers to actually retain more of what they create by taking a smaller initial percentage than traditional VCs would. I really don't see how you could possibly argue the founders are being taken advantage of. But . . . I think there's a point worth noting here, which is that the whole "work hard and cash out" mentality really only benefits people with a lot of equity, yet many of those companies need to eventually rely on non-founder employees in order to get to the point that they cash out, and those employees are often expected to work just as hard (or close to it) as the founders or the first few employees that have 10 or 100 times more equity than them, all while generally accepting below-market wages and benefits. That, to me, is what bothers me about the flip-it mentality: it's fine if it's you and your co-founders and that's it, but as soon as you grow past 10-15 people and have to start hiring on people who really have no chance of hitting it big, it becomes a little less noble to me to basically abandon those people once you're able to cash out, rewarding their years of hard work and low pay with a chance to go work with a bunch of people and in an organization that they didn't originally sign up for. I, at least, wouldn't want to work as an employee with startup founders that had that mentality.