"but he owned a Porsche 911 and would park in the best spot all the time. Hearing him talk about how there was no budget for raises while seeing his $100k car o

"but he owned a Porsche 911 and would park in the best spot all the time. Hearing him talk about how there was no budget for raises while seeing his $100k car outside was definitely a bit of cognitive dissonance" Maybe. But most employees don't seem to care that: 1) the boss may have gotten the money to buy the car before owning the current company. Most people in business have had multiple businesses throughout their lives. Even if it's not, they risked everything to create the company that now employs you. 2) The boss probably lost much more than the employees. When an employee loses a job, it sucks. But they can often times get unemployment and find another job (I've worked for plenty of companies that went under over the years). The boss loses: money (if they are a co-owner, they probably invested money), reputation, and credit is possibly damaged.