Cynicism comes with age, unfortunately,...so please forgive me. But I think you are missing an important point...

A VC's only aim is to make quick money. The recipe is rather straightforward: take a feel-good idea that is easy to explain, hype it, add credibility (like your genuine enthusiasm), bloat it in record time (so only possible with companies where scaling up doesn't require much investments in tangible stuff like machinery, etc. ) and once that is achieved, dump it directly on Muppets.

My guess is that you were consciously and intentionally duped. Investors not doing their due diligence and losing their investment is one thing. They ought to know the risks. But employees (so not professional investors) being paid their bonuses out in company shares is quite something else. It's called bad faith. If I were the VC involved I would try and buy back every single old employee share there is out there back at marginal value before their owners wake up to realize this and start a class action lawsuit against them.