webwright's comments are almost alone in having any real wisdom here, IMO. The nerd brigade of HN (a brigade which I know and love) is failing all over itself.

webwright's comments are almost alone in having any real wisdom here, IMO. The nerd brigade of HN (a brigade which I know and love) is failing all over itself. The truth is that equity in "startups" -- defined as that thing we do where we try to create massive equity value by compounding growth at astounding rates -- is something best held by people who are needed and wanted to work in the company on an ongoing basis. Any other equity outside of the current exec team -- be it owned by departed founders or by old investors -- is strictly a deadweight loss. (for token amounts to advisors, service providers, partner firms, I would see that differently as its expected their greatest contributions lie ahead) New money in will see a 50% absentee cofounder (or hell a 25 or even 15%) as rendering the company unfundable. And in any case very "hairy." This semi-autistic ranting about how OP should lawyer up and tell the others to go to hell is insanely misguided. Most likely if a major shareholder is being eased out and wants to make a huge stink, the result is a dead company. The sane and grow up thing to do is to talk to the cofounders and figure out who wants what, and if OP really is to leave, he should figure out how to maximize his value subject to a few considerations: 1. The odds he company can survive and thrive (e.g. Attract funding, motivate other execs), 2. The odds that if his deal is too rich he'll just med up inducing a need to engineer a cramdown in a future round, and 3. The reputational cost of being a petulant crazy pants vs being a soldier. Yes, this game is played more than once. Oh yeah, DO lawyer up, but do so in order to achieve the above.