Founders get the short end regardless, as a rule, with prominent exceptions.
A VC firm is handed a billion dollars they must invest by quarter end, somewhere. They get a zillion proposals, mostly trash. The number of obvious winners is much smaller than needed to absorb the $1B, so they have to fund a lot of less attractive choices.
Dumping all that money on losing propositions is fine with the investors, but the VCs hate to waste it. So, they have ways to milk the losers. In the old days they would make them buy Oracle or other licenses, for kickbacks from sales people. They have a stable of people owed favors they may appoint to C-suites of startups, at inflated salaries. HR departments are good for bleeding; startups rarely have an HR VP in mind.
The experience with VCs will vary enormously depending on whether yours is one of the few picked to succeed, instead of being milked.
A VC firm is handed a billion dollars they must invest by quarter end, somewhere. They get a zillion proposals, mostly trash. The number of obvious winners is much smaller than needed to absorb the $1B, so they have to fund a lot of less attractive choices.
Dumping all that money on losing propositions is fine with the investors, but the VCs hate to waste it. So, they have ways to milk the losers. In the old days they would make them buy Oracle or other licenses, for kickbacks from sales people. They have a stable of people owed favors they may appoint to C-suites of startups, at inflated salaries. HR departments are good for bleeding; startups rarely have an HR VP in mind.
The experience with VCs will vary enormously depending on whether yours is one of the few picked to succeed, instead of being milked.