I mean Microsoft invested in OpenAI back when they were still claiming to stay non-profit. There are ways such as just treating them as an exclusive subcontractor in order to keep your main business. Microsoft is not a chip company afterall but needs them to have product at prices people will pay.

You don’t have shareholders until you ipo. Startups have not ipoed.

If you’re the one funding the startup you can just reject that

They never lost their jobs. They were banned from the conference which is something hard to put a damage number on. They probably won’t sue the org because they remain part of it and are unlikely to want to take any real money from it that can otherwise continue going to helping diabetes research and advocacy. Maybe they can get a future conference paid for. They’re all relatively established in their careers.