Sure. But they still stand the have the most to lose. If a company goes under, an employee loses a job. The founder loses... well... who knows. Everything they've put into it. The equity, the time, the money. All gone.

That's the whole thing. As an employee, you agreed to the terms of your hiring.

When the company I worked for was bought out, employees with 401K's were given a sizable (but hardly enormous) contribution to that as part of the owner's sale. We weren't owed that, but I did appreciate it. But it was never promised to me and I was paid for the work I did.

I literally have lost blood to some of my projects, but I have a hardware component to my tinkering.

Yes, literally.

Employees are not essential the way a founder is. That is obvious.

No, not literally. The founder did not cut himself on the keyboard.

That's not really worth answering, but I have literally bled in several different ways from health consequences of high stress mental work.

Blood = health. There's no question running a startup often takes a toll on your health to some extent.

So, you're saying that blood is a metaphor for health? Is that what you're saying? "Literally" means the opposite of "metaphorically".