The honest answer to this is to unite... the introduction of transfer restrictions is new waters in the legal space and were only recently introduced (past 5 ye

The honest answer to this is to unite... the introduction of transfer restrictions is new waters in the legal space and were only recently introduced (past 5 years) and mostly limited to Silicon Valley. There are many disgruntled former-employees at these types of companies. Band together enough people with multi-million dollar stock options and you will have a big enough pie that a high profile attorney might be willing to push and potentially redefine the boundaries of what is lawful and what is not from a case law perspective (and get a piece of the pie for him/herself). Ethically I think these clauses should be made super transparent and they aren't -- and I agree that that is wrong. Just because 5 large startups do something doesn't mean it is right or fair in the long run legally. Sue strategically, band together and do it with force before they run out of money.