Founders often end up in a situation where there is significant dilution and as the hockey stick changes into a slightly different shape they know that nobody's options are worth anything
This is a very common occurrence, and unless you have a seat at the board, you are completely at the company's mercy when events like this happen.
Usually they will make current employees "whole," although the definition of that varies a lot. If you've left, though, you are completely shafted. The board will say "well you are no longer contributing to the company" but the same thing applies to the VC fund that invested last round and didn't this round.
There are an amazing number of hoops that you have to jump through for options in a start-up to pan out, and you have to hit essentially all of them, or else they are worthless.
This is a very common occurrence, and unless you have a seat at the board, you are completely at the company's mercy when events like this happen.
Usually they will make current employees "whole," although the definition of that varies a lot. If you've left, though, you are completely shafted. The board will say "well you are no longer contributing to the company" but the same thing applies to the VC fund that invested last round and didn't this round.
There are an amazing number of hoops that you have to jump through for options in a start-up to pan out, and you have to hit essentially all of them, or else they are worthless.