Bloomberg is an owner. While an employee that owns stock is technically an owner, it's not a significant distinction because they are in such a minority that th

Bloomberg is an owner. While an employee that owns stock is technically an owner, it's not a significant distinction because they are in such a minority that they have no control over the stock, and are therefore at the whim of the majority owners. It doesn't mean the options are worthless, but they have to be discounted. I owned stock in a company that will, very likely, never go public or get acquired. It doesn't need to. Because of the shareholder agreements, I could only really sell back to the company. Sometimes they were amenable to buying, other times they weren't. Essentially, I was playing in a monopoly market, except the monopoly was on the buyers side. Fortunately for me, the majority owners were much more generous than they needed to be. Without that, I wouldn't have been able to make anything from the stock.