Work for a company, create a product, have that product totally flop and all the investors lose their money? Cool, you're still making the same bi-weekly $3000.
Just to continue the analogy, an employee's monetary down side is limited to the amount of their investment, which is $0, modulo ESPPs and such. Investors can be leveraged and end up losing a multiple > 1 of their initial investment.
https://thespoon.tech/juicero-to-lay-off-25-of-staff-as-it-a...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/9/24032274/humane-layoffs-ai...
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/05/1091077398/checkout-startup-f...
etc.