It looks like you have the equivalent of a new investor round, with a new valuation for the company, with all of the consequences of that new price/valuation. A

It looks like you have the equivalent of a new investor round, with a new valuation for the company, with all of the consequences of that new price/valuation. Already having other investors and option holders makes it a challenge to do any other creative things...compared to being or becoming the sole owner. This is the standard state of affairs after a new investment round at a higher price. For example, not much different than the experience variance between a pre-series-A round investment employee compared to the new post-Series-A-investment employee experience in relation to options and pricing. Not much to be done about that. I guess you could have a 100-for-one stock split, post buy-out for present owners and option holders, as a method to getting new lower priced shares for future new employees. A future new employee's likely option fraction of the total company are going to be smaller, post-financing on any new investment/pricing round.