I see no reason whatsoever to suppose this guy was an asshole. He may have been mistaken about what he could bring to the table to be a part of this startup, but that doesn't make one an asshole.
As 'wheels' says in another comment: he did some work and now that there is money, he thinks it is reasonable he gets some payment for that work. The amount he asked for is reasonable as well.
I think 5k is cheap. And lesson learned here is don't bring ppl on unless they bring a valuable skill set to the team. Because when people hear "startups" they don't see creating something good, they see a lottery ticket hoping to be on bandwagon of the next facebook IPO.
Where's the sexism in my comment? I'm not assuming that straight women are doing all the cock-sucking, nor am I neglecting the existence of gay men, lesbians, bisexual folks of all stripes, asexual people or other people who just plain don't suck cock. I'm just assuming, to a first approximation, that their contributions toward aggregate cock-sucking cancel out. If roughly half of the world has penises, then some half, and not necessarily the _other_ half, of the world is sucking them.
I'm not trying to be snide, I just suspect you're assuming a reading of my comment that I don't endorse. Plenty of people besides straight women suck cock, and the world is better for it.
I'm merely pointing out that the term "cocksucker", when used as a term of derogation, is actually pretty unsavory.
While it's unclear to me whether it's ever off-topic to point out problematic slurs (would you think similarly if the OP had written "they got rid of a faggot..."?), I guess this exchange signals a mutual agreement between myself and the modal HN user about whether we want to interact.
A great bargain!