I happen to think the options are much closer to zero value then you seem to think they are, so there is no cognitive dissonance to me. I would never trust any

I happen to think the options are much closer to zero value then you seem to think they are, so there is no cognitive dissonance to me. I would never trust any start up not to fire me to save money on options if I wasn't at least arguably worth more than it. If the cost of the options > value of employee + cost of bad PR / other employees then I expect it to always have this outcome, and I am fairly certain it happens routinely just on a smaller scale. The only reason why this is news is that it is on a massive scale, on a well known and vilified tech company that is nearing IPO, and they aren't hiding the fact that they are doing this by just firing everyone. A random 15 person company that quietly fires their employee a month before their stock vests doesn't get to the front page of HN. It completely blows my mind that you think this exact situation isn't completely normal and something that you should take into account when you weigh the value of the stock. > But then, if that were common (or even somewhat likely), options would have literally near-zero value. See the problem? Yes, I completely agree that there is a problem that the people aren't on the same page. The problem that I see is that an absurdly high number of people are apparently overvaluing their unvested stock in startups. I still cannot comprehend that you think this is some backdoor unexpected usage of this. If you work at a tech startup and your stock is going to vest within a year before your company is going to be acquired or go to IPO, I would recommend you drastically reduce the expected value of your units based on what you are emoting here.