As the other poster said, this explicitly high risk low reward, at the expected required to break even. Because the range of those options is everything between

As the other poster said, this explicitly high risk low reward, at the expected required to break even. Because the range of those options is everything between and include 0x In order for it to be high risk high reward, the option's paper value should closer to competing packages from public companies. Because in order to take advantage of options, you have to exercise them, and in order to exercise them, you need to do it before they expire, with real cash out of your own pocket. Given the rate of startup failure, it's a good thing to allow earlier liquidity to those employees, so they don't get trapped into either staying for the 10 yrs till a real liquidity event, or bite the bullet and drop cash (forgoing other investment opportunities) when they decide to leave after some time (like a typical employee). In the end, the equity that group controls is very tiny.