Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company

Jesus this part sucks:

"In those nine months, when the whole team knew that we were fighting for our company’s life, not a single person left Gumroad. From “this is gonna be hard,” to “yep, turns out it was,” every single person worked harder than ever."

Did everyone one of these people have significant equity in the company?

I'd expect people who love their jobs and who work on something crucial, such as researching new medicines or making more efficient batteries to want and be able to do this. No offense, but if this ultimatum was handed out and I wasn't vested like the top guys I'd bail.

If gumroad became a billion dollar company you'd be retiring on that 9 months of work with even a tiny bit of equity. I bet there are plenty of people that bailed out of google, facebook or other similarly positioned startups at that stage and regret it.