[tyre]

This couldn’t be further from the reality.

Valuations on early stage companies have never been higher—we’re talking eight figures for pre-revenue businesses—which means millions of dollars before hitting the ~20% equity for a round.

Founders sometimes have shares worth multiple votes, the board is entirely them (since the huge supply of money gives them leverage), and VCs are so afraid of being labeled “founder unfriendly” that they defer almost entirely to founders.

Whether it’s good or bad is a much longer thing (some of each, of course) but it’s certainly not founders working for investors. It’s never been less so.