[true_religion]

Regardless the founders should pay their employees. As a founder, I would never feel good about not paying staff. Taking care of “your people” has to be a primary responsibility or else you are spitting on their loyalty and sacrifice.

However the extent to which they should take this case is pretty wide.

At least the guy should ask for his wages.

Maybe he should insist on them if he needs it.

Should they sue the founders and get an lien on their houses? I don’t know.

The first two shouldn’t remove good faith or good feeling. The third means bridges burned.

[DiggyJohnson]

Presumably the founders that cannot pay their employees in this “good faith hypothetical” do not feel good at all about not being able to pay out. I would imagine they feel defeated and embarrassed.

[elefanten]

In retrospect, you were correct my tone and rhetoric were out of line. I think siblings to my original comment (written by cogitoergofutuo and itsthecourrier) did a better job by more directly problematizing the "good faith hypothetical" itself. Mismanaging your way to missing payroll twice with no satisfactory communication about it and no promises to make it up is hard to classify as "good faith", even if bad luck was involved.

But I also concede that, in some cases, the cost of recouping might not be worth it.