And its not all deception. For all those that are convinced to stay on a sinking ship, there are a few that flee only to discover they missed the big payout.

I know one who was an early Tandem employee. He left because he had only a Masters' degree, among all those PhDs. They never respected him, never considered him for responsibility nor much equity. So he left to pursue another degree. Later of course had he stayed, he'd have been a millionaire many times over from even the little equity he'd had.

Another was working on a 3270 emulator for the PC, only to have IBM announce their upcoming product just as his was about to release. So he left the floundering company to get an MBA. Later they pivoted to release the network part of their software as Banyan Vines, which was a worldwide best-seller.

And so on.