I couldn't have said that better. I have seen this exact thing happen multiple times in startups, where you only really have a chance to make money if you are a founder or join really early on & hope that there is a good exit. as a regular or even senior employee you not only are helpless but also have to mentally deal with sunk cost fallacy. the problem is you (non founder) never gets rewarded for the significant risks you took working there. In investing world this is labelled uncompensated risk. which employees mostly take.