[trombone5000]

> why wouldn’t one of seven employees at the company want to know about how the business is doing?

If the early-stage employees have significant equity in the company, then they'll be very interested in how the company is doing. If their upside is paycheck, bonus and equity proportional to their salary (as you'd find in an established company), then one employer is as good as another.

I think the question of how much information to share is heavily dependent on how loyal the employees are to the company, and loyalty is almost entirely a matter of how much equity they hold (and more specifically how much equity they hold relative to the founders.)

[yAt8Pirng5fSxax]

In my experience loyalty is almost entirely a matter of who feels trusted and valued... in which sharing information freely (or appearing to) is a major factor. Especially when that information is directly relevant to them and their own financial security - even if you're just making wages it's still nice to know that your employer is stable.

[etothepii]

I doubt this is true. I can believe that it's a good idea to give people equity at the margin. But in my experience loyal people are loyal. People who put themselves first put themselves first. I think there's very little correlation between how good people are and how good they think they are.

Take a good, valuable or loyal employee and treat them badly and you can probably lose them. Take a bad, incompetent or disloyal employee and no matter how much you compensate them I suspect you can not change them.