In my experience it's not a secret to employees, although are you sure they aren't just waiting for the deal to close? Leadership (at least responsible leadersh

In my experience it's not a secret to employees, although are you sure they aren't just waiting for the deal to close? Leadership (at least responsible leadership) generally has to be very careful about what they tell people. Number of shares is meaningless, you can take the number of shares and the FMV of each share (they have to give you that else you can't pay taxes) and get an idea of where you are. You can do the same pre and post financing. I do not know if they have to tell you how many shares there are or how many have been allocated. If you exercise you may gain access to additional information as a share holder, but I don't know the specifics of how that works. Options are fun and you should negotiate for them, but never compromise on cash. They can't take away cash, but they can effectively render your options worthless if they wish.