It seems like any company willing to take a down round is also fine with taking a publicity hit and a hit to morale, which suggests it's in an even worse spot compared to what the devaluation would suggest.
Is there precedent that suggests even that SoftBank will come out on top from this?
If that's what Uber is doing internally, then in practice I imagine they're going to have to give out a lot more options to keep everybody happy.
For the people who have options, some could still be entirely wiped out by this, but it's not as big a problem for new hires.
It's still a problem, though. As the Reddit discussion makes clear, people are benchmarking against things like Google. The equivalent equity package from Google 2 years ago would have gained 30% in value, while the Uber one has lost 30%. Assuming $200k in equity from each place, that's $260k for Google and $140k for Uber, or nearly a 2x difference.
That would sure make me think about jumping ship.
It's not. Public numbers are based on preferred shares. Options are common.