There definitely are golden parachutes. In my experience, when a startup is going to die, it will thrash around a bit before it quits living.
Most recently, the company was running out of money (~3 months runway), no significant progress was made on the large new funding round we were looking for, and a small round wouldn't do any good since there were big (expensive) milestones to meet. With about 2.5 months left, we laid off about 80-90% of the staff to extend the runway.
Most employees were let go with two week severance packages and about 1 week's worth of insurance. "Critical" employees stayed and were given sizable 'retention' packages with big bonuses if new funding was arranged.
Most recently, the company was running out of money (~3 months runway), no significant progress was made on the large new funding round we were looking for, and a small round wouldn't do any good since there were big (expensive) milestones to meet. With about 2.5 months left, we laid off about 80-90% of the staff to extend the runway.
Most employees were let go with two week severance packages and about 1 week's worth of insurance. "Critical" employees stayed and were given sizable 'retention' packages with big bonuses if new funding was arranged.