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if the founders create the value, why would you give them a chance to leave with discounted future profits before the value is realized in a real (not discounted) profit stream?

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Because regardless of whether profit is there, they should be able to extract value if they want to.

If profit isn't there, value is theoretical. You're just taking money from the VC (and the business' growth). You may find future rounds harder to fund.

So amazon's market cap of 144b is theoretical because they don't have profits? And bezos should be paid enough salary to survive but not so much that he is no longer "hungry"?

First, Amazon's valuation is theoretical. Their valuation is so detached from their fundamentals and so dependent on a narrative about their future performance that Matthew Yglesias describes them as "a charity benefiting American consumers funded by Wall Street".

Second, there's no valid comparison between the A-round valuation of a startup and Amazon, a giant publicly traded company with a decades-long track record and huge cash flows. Mutual and pension fund managers invest in Amazon. To a first approximation, none of those managers directly value startups.

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