imagnitude

You are completely right in this case. Sometimes, when the company is not doing well and the founder CEO is not hitting the performance targets agreed on earlier, the VCs will fire the founder and install one of their MBA buddies to try to turn the company around. This is usually a condition of further funding when the company is in a weak negotiating position and on the verge of shutting down, and it's incredibly unpleasant for everyone involved. However, the executive implants only come in when the company is circling the drain. It's basically failed at that point, and the founders get nothing. Sure, the executives may get a big chunk of equity to lure them into a company that's going to zero, but barring an incredibly rare miraculous turnaround, that equity is completely worthless by the time the VCs get their liquidation preferences.

All of the things you describe are aspects of bad startups. Things are very, very different in good startups that are doing well, even the VC funded ones.

My comment is specifically about founders of VC funded startups. It might be different outside Silicon Valley. But in my experience in SV, I know the founders of about 20 venture funded startups socially. One of them is what you would call a "rich kid". The rest bootstrapped for many months, paying themselves virtually nothing, getting deep in debt, before their Series A. Even after raising an A round, they pay themselves subsistence wages, just enough to eat so that they can pay market rate six figure salaries to the engineers on their team.

This might be unique to the West Coast. But around here, social/country club connections mean nothing for raising money. Anyone can get a meeting with a top tier VC pretty easily, even if you are a complete nobody. Having a well connected family might help with other things, but it has absolutely zero effect on fundraising.

I know you're just trolling, but I'll comment anyway, because it's important to set the record straight.

The vast majority of founders are not spoiled rich kids playing with daddy's money. The vast majority of founders take a massive risk when they go all in on a startup. Before getting funding, most bootstrap for years, neglecting family, friends, vacation, working 14 hour days, all for a business idea they believe in. The equity a founder gets is small compensation for giving up years of his life. Even after raising money, a founder will continue to live on subsistence wages, giving up the opportunity cost of a cushy 6 figure job. In pretty much every venture backed startup, the founders are some of the lowest paid employees at the company. Most of the funded startup founders I know make less than $50K, which is a big improvement from the minimum wage salary they paid themselves in the first two years of the startup.

When your startup falls, there's not some kind of cushy EIR gig waiting for you at the friendly VC. Unless you're a tech celebrity, you're lucky to get an entry level PM job at a Google or Facebook. Source: Dozens of founders I know who raised money and failed.

Your portrayal of all founders and investors as some kind of scheming robber barons is insulting and incredibly demeaning to every single entrepreneur on this forum.

Guess what: founders are regular programmers, just like you. And they deserve every last bit of equity they get.