> After all, you would leave a company structured like that, which diluted down your equity or awarded an unconditional salary to the flagrantly unproductive.
Not me. I am a selfish monster, and if my company paid me more (and treated me better) than I could get elsewhere, I would let them do horrible things like piss away money on losers.
All people make small mistakes all the time, and usually can recover. Few of them involve falling into an abyss, but tasting meth or heroin or maybe crack are among them.
Parole exists, which makes prison times extremely flexible, The exception is mandatory minimums, which are generally only for murder and for handling drugs that non-white/rich people tend to be disproportionately involved with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_map