> If only I had asked the employees what they thought of the founders, I would have saved myself a lot of headache, heartache, and stomach ache.

The problem is, if you asked current employees what they think of the founders during an interview, they're going to give you a party-line everything here is awesome drinking the kool-aid answer. The only way to really be privy to the honest answer is to back channel it, but hard if you don't have a large network or don't have any contacts there. I don't know the solution.