ps. It makes perfect sense nowadays. With the vast majority of all wealth concentrated in the investment portfolios/hedge funds etc. of a very small elite. If you can build enough hype to convince them to invest even a minuscule fraction, you are set.

...as long as you are paying yourself a hefty salary. Your equity dilutes quickly when you raise a lot of money, and liquidation preferences can leave you with nothing unless you actually make a wildly profitable company.

That's always the case nowadays, huh? I think the days of startups CEO earning engineer level salaries and flying coach are long gone - at least for VC funded companies.

Founders are no longer forced to wait for IPO before selling shares. And after you get an X0 million dollar check who cares if you own 1% of what's left.

This is news to me. Has it been reported anywhere?

It's called 'taking money off the table' and it's very common. EX: We knew that in Groupon's past two financing rounds, founders had taken money off the table. http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-ipo-insider-selling-2...

Companies need to be huge before this before founders get's into the 10+ million dollar range, but even VC do this: http://avc.com/2018/01/taking-money-off-the-table/

Further, it's often encouraged as founders that take out enough money not to have significant financial concerns are more willing to aim for the fences.

ICOs seem to be an even better route nowadays

The ICO era has pretty much passed in the US. Once everyone started limiting it to accredited investors it lost any advantage over traditional fundraising.