Earlier this year I was was laid off from a startup that went bust. We failed to find a market that could support us, and the investors lost confidence and pulled the plug. It was the prototypical startup failure story.<p>Here&#x27;s the thing: if the founders came to me tomorrow and said &quot;I&#x27;m starting a new company and I need developers&quot;, I&#x27;d probably join them.<p>Why? Because throughout the whole thing they acted absolutely properly. They kept us in the loop about the company&#x27;s situation as it deteriorated and did everything they could to salvage the company and pivot into something new. And we trusted them enough that almost the entire staff stayed on until the end even though we were almost certain for a few months that the company was probably not going to survive.<p>When the investors declined to reinvest, the founders shut the doors with enough money left in the bank to pay a modest severance and keep a skeleton staff on for a few months to wind down the company and service customers during their notice period.<p>Some colleagues have told me stories of places they&#x27;ve worked where they didn&#x27;t find out the company was broke until their paycheques started bouncing, the landlord started stopping into the office asking for the executives, and those executives were nowhere to be found.