More than half of startup employees can tell when their founder is stressed, and they are making career decisions based on these observations. New research from Startup Snapshot, developed with The Inner Foundation and Ignite DeepTech, reveals that teams that identified visible founder stress reported significantly higher rates of burnout, disengagement, and intention to leave. Employees who leave are not necessarily being disloyal; often, they're just reading environmental signals for survival. But what exactly are they detecting?