The worse a company treats its employees, the less loyal they will be, and the more likely it is that one of them decides to earn money by abusing their insider access, either out of greed or despair.
The thing is that pre-acquisition mailchimp was an example of a place tech employees loved to work but not for the equity. The founders built a strong internal culture of private ownership and then bailed for a payday. If any other company sold out and employees got short changed, it wouldn’t make the news.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mailchimp-insiders-react-to-...
> When employees were recruited to work at Mailchimp there was a common refrain from hiring managers: No, you are not going to get equity, but you will get to be part of a scrappy company that fights for the little guy and we will never be acquired or go public.
Like when someone at Mailchimp sold out the users of various Mailchimp customers to criminals (https://twitter.com/Trezor/status/1510558771944333312).