The start-ups could do the very hard work to make sure that employees can trust the stock options. I've seen all sorts of games. One of the most common, which

The start-ups could do the very hard work to make sure that employees can trust the stock options. I've seen all sorts of games. One of the most common, which is surely a violation of fiduciary duty but no one cares to do anything about it, is when the VCs with 3 of 5 seats on the corporate board negotiate a sell-out that matches, down to the dollar, the amount of money needed to make the VCs represented by those 3 seats 100% whole, and not one dollar more. In order for options to pay out, there are bunch of hurdles that all need to be cleared in a row, with no mess-ups in between, and many of them are not in your control at all.