But he would only get 20K. 180K would go to Jin Yiang unless I'm misunderstanding something.
Investors don't get seed money, it all goes to the company they just keep their percentage. At some point they sell some of that percentage to future investors in a dilution of their share, or just keep it until the company is sold / IPO. But if you invest 10% in a new startup you don't get 10% of every funding round or anything like that, it goes to operating the company (which CAN "pay" the founders, board of directors, etc so thats one way to drain out some liquid cash). Usually some horse trading is done as well, so Erlich's 10% share of SeeFood could get broken up and 1% get traded for 5% in another startup, etc.
I'm not even clear on how SeeFood is structured funding wise, Erlich traded 1 year of free rent to Jin Yiang for 10% I think but did he do that as Bachmanity (which means BigHead would own 5%) or did he do that as Erlich, silicon valley slumlord?
One weird thing about the episode was how nobody brought up that Richard pouring over Peter's notebooks and literally outright stealing them is again the kind of intellectual theft Richard constantly is doing. Just because a dude is dead doesn't mean you can rifle through his notebooks and take whatever you find, consequence free. I guess if he works with Gavin, then technically Gavin may own the ideas but it seems to completely freeze out Peter's (now Laurie's) VC firm which will be an issue I would think down the road, especially if its found that Richard broke into Peter's storage and took a bunch of notebooks.