I thought the point of the one year cliff is to weed out toxic employees. If you're around more than a year, why shouldn't you get to keep your vested options,

I thought the point of the one year cliff is to weed out toxic employees. If you're around more than a year, why shouldn't you get to keep your vested options, even if issues emerge later? What's the point of a vesting schedule then? Look, if you think the company should have the right to determine how much equity employees get to keep when they leave, that's fine. But if you're an honest company then you have to be transparent about it. It is not "tough" to be transparent if you are proud about what you are saying. You can simply say, "Look, vesting doesn't really mean anything until we have a liquidity event. Before that, you aren't guaranteed anything, but we can make exceptions." So, will you start saying it that way to your recruits?