Incidentally, this is one of the best reasons to found a company -- equity is distributed in such a way that those who take the biggest risk will be properly rewarded.
Secondly, founders taking money off the table has become common. As mentioned in this very comment thread: "Zuckerberg, Moskovitz, and Parker each got $1m from Accel when they raised their $12.7m Series A according to David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect."
This is both at a far earlier stage, and far more money on percentage basis compared to the overall valuation of the company. I wasn't party to the deal, but I highly doubt any other early Facebookers got liquidity then. But those same people are definitely not complaining today.
I personally don't think anyone got screwed here.
Using multiple credit cards to fund a risky investment is irresponsible.
And if on joining, you were told about 2 classes of stocks - one for the founders and one for the employees then you should have understood that this was a distinct possibility.
This VC is just using this small soapbox to warn Airbnb not to eff with him. And to try to stem the tide in Silicon Valley where successful founders are compensated for getting a company upto a $1 billion valution WITH revenue.
If an employee had written this, I would have been a little (tiny) bit sympathetic but for a VC to act like he cares for the employees -- you HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!!
They've only had employees for about 2 years. /pedantic
http://blog.airbnb.com/hiring-really-smart-software-engineer
If there is ever a second class of stock, and it is yours, it is worthless.
Yes, that surprised me a lot! Especially from founders that are somewhat "famous" and are connected to YC. I expected they don't play these tricks. Greed?
Anyone knows how their employees reacted to this news? If I would have worked 50+ hours for year(s) and then read this... :(