I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

It's more like that you had a personal bonus scheduled for Dec 31, and your last day was the next Jan 30, and they never paid you.

Any time you see this, you can be pretty much guaranteed that it's entirely about the money and nothing more. If you want to prove to yourself that it's about principle of exposing poor business ethics, then give some or all of the money to a total stranger (or a charity) when you get it. Not going to happen? Then you're not really in it for the principle.

The point I'm driving at is that this is (obviously) seen to be taboo behavior, but I'm not sure that anybody would find this and visit repercussions upon the author.

Additionally, a lot of the taboo might be based on "word getting around." Well, how many times have you heard of management badmouthing people to other companies? Ever? I'm not sure the blacklist implied in some of these responses actually exists.

Furthermore, there has been plenty of bad management to go around, and publicizing their faults has not affected hardly any of their careers. In fact, it can be seen as a badge of experience to have presided over a failure. Experience is experience, after all, and might you want to hire a developer who has learned the hard lesson of not keeping backups? A lot of companies (including Miso, apparently) could use talent like that.

Opponents are right in the same way you shouldn't badmouth former employers in job interviewers. It's not fair but it makes you look worse. You just kind of have to suck it up and move on.

When companies screw you out of money, you should name and shame them (IMHO). Trust me, over the years I've probably lost out on all told $50,000 or more that people never paid. In some cases it was a clear breach of contract. I never pursued it through litigation and reading stories from those that have I'm kinda glad. Such a thing is a mental burden and a distraction. Your best bet really is to move on unless the amount is really huge (maybe even $50,000+ for a single claim).

All that being said, this scenario is not one the company should be ashamed of IMHO and were I Miso I wouldn't have said a damn thing about it.

He forgot to claim a referral bonus. They didn't pay it after he left the company. Technically, they are correct: referral bonuses are paid to employees. He is not an employee.

Sure they could've paid it to him and maybe they should've but I sympathize with their position.

No matter what anyone tells you--and this is important--when you get a bonus of any sort it is forward-looking even though it's for what you've done. If you've left the company or are leaving, you are no longer of value to them.

If he's made the claim and pushed back on it finally reneging, that would be a completely different story.

This is a textbook example of "nothing to gain" and "makes you look bad" rolled into one.

EDIT: to answer one point brought up by a commentor (chasing): yes, you are correct. This is not a bonus in the strictest sense.

It is not however automatic compensation like your salary is. You need to take action to claim it (by submitting the form or whatever to get the referral bonus). Miso admits he did not do that. He is no longer an employee and thus can't file forms an employee otherwise would.

I imagine if this were a case where he expensed something and failed to claim the expenses the employer would pay. From this you can (reasonably) view the two as similar. The difference (IMHO) is that if an employer doesn't pay outstanding expenses, you may continue to own or you have a pretty cut-and-dried case against them for breach of contract.

Failing to file a referral bonus form while you were an employee is really your fault.

I'm not saying the employer is completely in the right here but honestly I think they're more right than he is and certainly come out of this looking better than he does.