That’s on the founders and management, not the VC. You can choose to plan ahead and make sure you treat employees and customers fairly based on tracking your expenditures and reserves or you can run into the wall at full speed.
We did this. It wasn’t that hard but it required a lot of honesty. Having been through it I’m always shocked when startups fail with no warning.
Yes, those standards are usually about not paying anything including owed wages or PTO (why do you think "unlimited PTO" exists? It means you don't have to pay it back or accumulate it over time, making it easier to reject any PTO request)
Are there any VC out there that have ethics standards around winding down a failed venture, especially towards termination of employees?