The lesson would rather be: don't raise so much at the seed stage. Google got started with a $100K grant.
FanDuel raised $400M in four years [1]
And it looks like one of the the FanDuel founders did it again [2]
This is reckless and should be a massive red flag for new joiners.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FanDuel
[2] https://futurescot.com/fanduel-co-founder-secures-largest-uk...
This changes the complection of the whole article! "Sell for half a billion and get nothing" is _exactly_ what you expect if you raised almost half a billion in finding.
I'm sure all the points in there are important and maybe the author's product is still useful. But it's not really an accurate picture to say that these founders got shafted by unfair terms. They just didn't build a very valuable business relative to the amount of money they spent...
I think the problem with the article is that it emphasized the absolute acquisition value and omitted the fact that the company raised $400M. Considering the amount they raised, $559M seems much more reasonable and not quite bad terms?
Their sale was a 16% increase on their investment rounds. They soaked up half a billion in investment, and then got almost no return or "value added."
Almost as dumb as that $500 million tomato farm that couldn't grow tomatoes. (had to check, AppHarvest)
The other viewpoint is, that typically at funded startups founders get some salary. You can view it also as an another job.