That's a good point and honestly, that kind of sucks for early employees, but it's not going to affect whether or not a founder decides to take money from this

That's a good point and honestly, that kind of sucks for early employees, but it's not going to affect whether or not a founder decides to take money from this fund or if it's successful. Early employees at many successful startups have a long, accomplished history of getting royally screwed over on their equity to work ratio. In my experience, I've seen how that can build into real resentment over time, but of course they can't leave until they've vested, so they're just stuck doing all the work and getting compensated well, but no where close to they might deserve or what the founders end up with. Employees, early or not, have absolutely zero input into what investments founders decide to take. It's also possible that employees may join before a start-up gets an investment from this fund, making the (potential) screwed-overness even worse. Employees can get as mad about this as they want, but they'll have pretty much zero recourse in any situation.