Indeed. If the company is a "real business" with actual customers and real profitable finances then those shares can be worth something. If it's all a bunch of

Indeed. If the company is a "real business" with actual customers and real profitable finances then those shares can be worth something. If it's all a bunch of VC backed fluff, well then good luck. At that point it's just a game of selling these virtual units to others wheeling and dealing in similar pumped up virtual fluff. There are lots of ways the 'options' holders get diluted and made irrelevant and are in effect just pawns that can be made to work for less cash based on the, mostly, pipe dream that these options will be worth something some day. One needs to be very careful if you're in this bucket.