I believe that naming and shaming unscrupulous founders who fuck over people like this would encourage more to codify these agreements in writing from the get-go.

The company is the one that made the verbal agreement, which they could have written down at any time. The company is the one that abused it's power, and most importantly, the trust of the employee. To me, that is an incredibly heinous act, which should come with draconian punishments.