I think this has an interesting consequence for founders and employees at startups in this day and age, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand

I think this has an interesting consequence for founders and employees at startups in this day and age, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it means you can "fail faster". That is, if you're a startup employee, and you don't see "hockey stick" growth that is looking crazy impressive at the end of year 1, you should know that the chances of your equity being worth more than a token are basically zero. Starting around the dot com boom, I worked in numerous startups, and for some of them we were still chugging along in years 3-4 with the hopes that our "semi-OK, decent growth" would turn vertical any day now. I've seen numerous startups that started in the 2015-2020 timeframe (so existed for 5-10 years) where they didn't outright fail but common got wiped in an acquisition. That's more a consequence of the rise in interest rates and difficult fundraising environment, but it's really rough to plug along at a company for 5-10 years, think you're doing OK, and then your stock is worth nothing. So from a startup founder/employee perspective, you get signal faster and don't have to waste time. Simultaneously, though, it seems like any idea that would take a decent amount of upfront investment and time would be hella difficult to get funded, and I think that's unfortunate.