Eric Paley Contributor Eric Paley is a managing partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor The plague of rationalization Learning to embrace conflict as a part of startup culture Everyone generally agrees that dilution should be avoided. VCs insist on pro-rata rights to avoid the dreaded “D” word. Executives often complain, after a new financing, that they should be “made whole” to offset the dilution that came with the new round.