I went through the poster's exact situation in 2002 after my first company slowly died following 9/11.
I think the assumptions you are making about the Founders are not well grounded. How do you know they are not jerks? Here's how I see it. Employee wages are fixed costs and easy to predict. If you know ahead of time (extremely likely) that you can't make wages, you MUST immediately notify your employees and put them on unpaid leave. You can't just implicitly ask them to work for uncertain future compensation based on not-booked revenue. It's incompetent and unethical. There's no excuse for that. As the poster has said, he was a straight salaried employee, not a founder in any way expected to have variable income. That would be different, but that's not the case. Go get more funding if needed, but don't exploit your employee's loyalty.
I'm glad that the poster quit because that's the right thing to do, and the sooner the better. If this ever happens to me again, I'm gone when the first check doesn't show up.
In the end, my employer went into bankruptcy, which is probably the best in this situation. I got a lawyer and made sure my back wages priority claim was registered. Yes, it's true that employee back wages are high priority and get paid earlier than many other outstanding debts, BUT, this doesn't just happen automatically. I only got paid (a fraction of what I was owed) BECAUSE I got myself active in the legal process. All the other employees who just moved on and didn't get involved didn't get anything. You need to stand up for what you are owed and work in the legal system to get (a fraction of) it.
FYI this didn't entirely destroy the relationship in the long run. I still talk with one of the founding partners on good enough terms. There's nothing wrong with asking to get paid what you were promised. That's not burning a bridge. In the big picture, honestly this is a bridge that you probably need to burn and that's OK in this case, but you're relationship surviving depends more on how they handle it. If you walk away quietly like a chump, how does that make you appear to them for your future relationship?
I think the assumptions you are making about the Founders are not well grounded. How do you know they are not jerks? Here's how I see it. Employee wages are fixed costs and easy to predict. If you know ahead of time (extremely likely) that you can't make wages, you MUST immediately notify your employees and put them on unpaid leave. You can't just implicitly ask them to work for uncertain future compensation based on not-booked revenue. It's incompetent and unethical. There's no excuse for that. As the poster has said, he was a straight salaried employee, not a founder in any way expected to have variable income. That would be different, but that's not the case. Go get more funding if needed, but don't exploit your employee's loyalty.
I'm glad that the poster quit because that's the right thing to do, and the sooner the better. If this ever happens to me again, I'm gone when the first check doesn't show up.
In the end, my employer went into bankruptcy, which is probably the best in this situation. I got a lawyer and made sure my back wages priority claim was registered. Yes, it's true that employee back wages are high priority and get paid earlier than many other outstanding debts, BUT, this doesn't just happen automatically. I only got paid (a fraction of what I was owed) BECAUSE I got myself active in the legal process. All the other employees who just moved on and didn't get involved didn't get anything. You need to stand up for what you are owed and work in the legal system to get (a fraction of) it.
FYI this didn't entirely destroy the relationship in the long run. I still talk with one of the founding partners on good enough terms. There's nothing wrong with asking to get paid what you were promised. That's not burning a bridge. In the big picture, honestly this is a bridge that you probably need to burn and that's OK in this case, but you're relationship surviving depends more on how they handle it. If you walk away quietly like a chump, how does that make you appear to them for your future relationship?