Only real way to make money in tech is FAANG. I've owned so much worthless stock it's basically a meme.
Every other start-up I've worked for either went under, never exited or had an exit only the founders profited from. This is probably true for 99% of all start-ups.
That seems quite implausible. Not that the managers there weren’t jerks, or that this didn’t contribute to the conflict, but there seems to be a lack of reflection on this story because there is almost certainly more to it than that.
Most of the US has at-will employment, and they can terminate you at any time for any legal reason, and there's no federal-level laws on offering bereavement time off, so I bet this happens more often than you think (at least a cursory google search brings up quite a few people telling stories of it happening to them).
I was simultaneously doing conference marketing and managing our infrastructure. Dad died, I told them I had to go, didn't communicate much, because my dad had died, and they thought it was inappropriate that I wasn't calling them while taking care of my mother.
I also found out later that a certain YCombinator partner found out that I had 2% of the company and suggested they fire me before I vest because it was an "obscene" amount of stock for a single employee to have, even if I was the 7th employee and took a 50% salary cut in exchange for that stock.
So yeah, there's more to the story.
Many many many startups don’t even get that much. They fold entirely or get acquihired for “hey you still have a job”.