Workers take a risk too when they work for a small company, and are often worse off than the owner when the business fails.
How do you figure? Starting a business (generally) requires a lot of money to lease space, make it usable for your needs, and all those employees you're paying. Some of that can be liquidated (often at a lower amount than you got it for) other expenses you're on the hook for. That can add up to be a lot.
Employees can be out pay, and while there's no doubt that totally sucks, the potential losses are basically limited to how long you kept showing up to work despite no paycheck.