Slightly disappointing to see the anti-founder sentiment expressed here. To recap -- 1. The founders started from zero with their own equity and worked for six

Slightly disappointing to see the anti-founder sentiment expressed here. To recap -- 1. The founders started from zero with their own equity and worked for six years on the startup. They took funding during '99 and '00 when it was a very easy time to get funding. Completely unremarkable investment (risk-wise) for the investors. 2. The dot-com crash and 9/11 meant that many many businesses collapsed post 2000. So, it wasn't just founder incompetence. There are many startups that almost went under but slowly managed to get out and have exits during the late '00s. 3. Apparently the investors thought the company was good enough to continue investing under the same name with new management. If the idea was so useless why didn't they shut it down in 2000? 4. Most of the value of startups is created after the first several years. Many lessons are learned that give direction to future opportunities. Many of the startups that almost went under and came up, learned to pivot (same management). The lesson to learn here is that the founder were not diligent about control over their company. It is not like the investors did some calculation of value demonstrated to come up with the numbers. They automatically started adding 8% of company shares every year based on the 2000 agreement. To give a counter example to make things clear, Microsoft started in 1975 with Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Allen was diagnosed with Cancer and pretty much stopped working at Microsoft after 1982. After six years. How much audit-able value did Microsoft created post Paul Allen?. I would say about 99%. Does that mean he should be zeroed out? No. He kept his stake (worth tens of billions). That's how it should be. Most of the value in a startup is latent during the early stages. Even things that don't work out teach you things. If you go by audit-able value, that pretty much guarantees early founders (who don't stay) will get wiped out. For people who are cheering on the investors, how many of you have bootstrapped a startup for six years?