The answer here is dilution. Issue enough added stock to solve the problem and everyone ends up with a smaller stake in a more valuable company (if only because

The answer here is dilution. Issue enough added stock to solve the problem and everyone ends up with a smaller stake in a more valuable company (if only because it's no longer doomed). You don't single out an employee and mug them, at the very least because then the sysadmin would have to be an idiot to believe it couldn't happen to him during the next crisis. For this to be a trolley problem, the chef would have to be holding a supermajority of the equity—more than the founder and the investors put together.