1) The company could offer to buy back options at market rate.
2) The company's current investors could offer to buy equity from employees. The majority of investors returns come from a small number of portfolio companies, for those companies that are doing well the investors want a bigger stake even if it comes in as secondary.
3) Companies could appoint designated investors who could buy secondary stock from employees. Successful companies typically have over-subscribed rounds, companies could allow those investors who they like but couldn't get into the round to buy employee stock.
The general reason (2) and (3) don't happen is that individual employees don't have that much stock and the overhead involved makes it not worthwhile. But potentially there could be a solution which involves bundling together stock into meaningful amounts.
1) The company could offer to buy back options at market rate.
2) The company's current investors could offer to buy equity from employees. The majority of investors returns come from a small number of portfolio companies, for those companies that are doing well the investors want a bigger stake even if it comes in as secondary.
3) Companies could appoint designated investors who could buy secondary stock from employees. Successful companies typically have over-subscribed rounds, companies could allow those investors who they like but couldn't get into the round to buy employee stock.
The general reason (2) and (3) don't happen is that individual employees don't have that much stock and the overhead involved makes it not worthwhile. But potentially there could be a solution which involves bundling together stock into meaningful amounts.