I didn't realize your comment exclusively pertained to venture owners. Even so a venture owner could sell the company to the employees and move on to their next big thing.
But then, you'd be surprised at how many highly-compensated programmers never bother to exercise their options. The same ones who then go on Hacker News and complain about bad treatment of workers, and how if only they owned the companies.
Careful with them broad strokes Tex.
This reads like an oddly specific claim -- do you have examples?