Five founders left to split $36,000 after their tech startup gets sold for $82M (dailymail.co.uk)

Sucks, but I don't get the lawsuit. Corporate officers negotiated deal terms that resulted in dilution. Several times. Over 8 years.

Seems pretty straightforward.

I feel like there is probably a lot more going on under the surface than the article portrays.

A little more background from the article: the five founders left the firm in 2000, 11 years before it was ultimately sold. At the time they left, the company was floundering and nearly bankrupt. The investors who took over the company saved it and are almost wholly responsible for it being sale-worthy.

Really, the founders should consider themselves lucky they got anything at all; they certainly didn't do anything to earn the windfall.