This is all sorts of wrong. Miso should have paid the referral fee (let's stop calling it a bonus as another commenter pointed out) as soon as the referred employee hit 6 months. Why are employees forced to beg for their money? For most of us, it's awkward to have to go to 'the man' and ask for our money. So we procrastinate and 'forget' about asking for the money, all while working hard anyway.

Switching jobs is an excellent time to have $10k handy.

And for them to say "no sorry, you screwed up at the end" shows just how much they valued that employee's contribution to the team for an entire year.

This reeks of Big Co. incompetent management mentality. Sad to see startup founders power tripping and not realize it.