I often had startups offer me a number of shares with no explanation for the percentage ownership or the number of total shares.
I said I have to value them at zero without more information and they would act all offended when I asked for more (happened at least 3 times).
This suggests to me that founders either don’t understand the mechanics themselves or are preying on lack of financial understanding.
It’s the latter.
Ignorance is a big problem too. One time I had someone offended when I asked if their insurance plan qualified as a high deductible - they didn’t know it was a legal classification and thought I was accusing it of being expensive.
I’m not anti-startup but the VC backed startup culture of the last 10 years or so has been pretty souring.
It's kinda both sometimes haha