Not only that, but the founders themselves took a 40% pay cut each for the next year. That says to me that they value their employees enough that they chose that route rather than lay off an additional person. It's a strong gesture.

And the founders each loaned the company $100k out of their own pockets at "the lowest possible interest rate."

There's a lot of laudable humility and self-accountability in this post and the actions they've taken.

I read that as weasel word bullshit. The lowest possible rate would be 0.

Except it seems as though they all signed up to be at a company that was transparent and practiced a certain way of doing business (and actually pushes it as one of the great reasons to work there) and then you find out it was all a lie and that management was hiding information from you as suited them. By their own admission the layoffs came out of the blue to staff despite the fact that they were deliberating on it for a while.

If they practiced what they preached they would have laid it all out early. Some people may have had other opportunities and left, others might have said that they would take a paycut for the greater good, etc.

What this may mean, is that some staff members think that the company isn't actually what it says it is, isn't genuine in its approach, and that they can't trust it to live up to it's values when the going does get tough.