I think they're worthless because of the nature of liquidation preference. There are a select few elite startups like Dropbox that I would value common options at, but those companies will obviously IPO. Clearly the person who I responded to is at a company that is not going to IPO, exercising options is extremely expensive, and there are well known avenues to making common shares worth $0 and so it's an enormous financial risk. Again, if you're not invited to board meetings, how much do they value you, and how much do they consider you a co-owner and partner? If they don't, and you're in the dark about so much critical information, taking that financial risk is even more of a bad play.
