Loyalty Is Dead In Tech

Find missionaries, not mercenaries

Six months ago, you joined an AI startup. Took the pay cut. Moved your family to San Francisco. Told your parents this one IS the one.

Last week, a Slack popped up. “Exciting news.” Your CEO is joining Microsoft. Most of the team is going with him. You are not on the list. You get paid, but the mission leaders have abandoned you.

In 2022, Adobe tried to buy Figma for $20 billion. Regulators decided to block it so Big Tech had to find a side door.

Microsoft paid Inflection $650 million in “licensing fees” and hired the CEO and most of the 70-person team. Amazon did the same with Adept, taking 80% of the technical staff. Google hired back the Character.AI founders for $2.7 billion, then repeated it with Windsurf and Hume. Same structure every time: license the technology, hire who you want, leave the rest.

Not an acquisition. No regulatory review. Everyone who built the thing doesn’t come along.

Now, founders are leaving their own companies. Last month, two co-founders of a $12 billion startup went back to the previous company. A year ago, a CEO left his $32 billion company for a competitor. When the people who started it don’t stay, why would anyone else?

In 2012, Instagram sold for $1 billion. All 13 employees joined Facebook. Founders stayed for six years. Everyone who took the risk shared the outcome.

There was an oath. Never written down. No founder signed it. No VC swore it in front of witnesses. But everyone understood: you do right by the people who bet on you. Employees who took pay cuts. Investors who wrote checks when nothing was proven. Partners who turned down safer options.

That oath is dead.

The week after your CEO announces, everything looks normal. Same standups. Same Slack channels. The people who got picked are negotiating their equity packages. Everyone else is quietly updating LinkedIn.

Why take the risk when the best case is watching your CEO leave without you?

VCs who funded your startup learned the same lesson. Five years ago, backing a competitor to a portfolio company was taboo. One fund forfeited a $21 million stake rather than create a conflict. Now mega funds back three, four, five companies in the same category. Fund sizes doubled. Companies stay private for 15 years. They can’t afford to miss a large category. So they bet on everyone and let the market decide. Watch them squeamishly talk about how “each” one is different.

I work at a boutique fund. We can’t hedge like that. We have to pick. I’m biased but that’s not the point.

The point is what we’re teaching. Every employee who got that Slack learns that “mission” is a recruiting pitch. Every founder who watches their VC fund a competitor learns they were a bet, not a partner.

I still back founders. I still believe there’s never been a better time to build. But I try to find people who still believe the oath matters. The ones who would rather go slower than abandon the people who believed in them. Even when faster often means richer.

So pick carefully. Ask your VC who else they have backed in your category. Ask what happened to employees at the founder’s last company. Understand what the numbers actually mean before you sign anything.

The oath is dead. But missionaries still exist. Finding them has never mattered more.