I realize I could have attempted to exercise sooner, but that isn't quite the point. The part that really bugs me is the fact that time is undervalued (or non-valued). If I have a high value asset, my time, that I contribute towards the success of a company, it's value goes severely underappreciated by management and the board. That's the problem. If person X puts in money, and person Y puts in time, the time is regarded as a non-asset. Now, you might be tempted to say, "but you got paid", and I did. But I put in far more time than would be required somewhere else. That is, I put in extra time, a non-fungible unrecoverable asset, into the company and had nothing to show for it. Asking for more payment (for the options) is the equivalent of asking me for more time, which I had given plenty of already.