The 10-year exercise is such a no-brainer. Just ask yourself, startup founders & investors: when you issue stock options to your employees, do you want them to exercise them or not?

If not, then what you're really doing is offering something you hope doesn't cost you anything and is therefore worth nothing. Good luck to you.

If so, then do everything you can to help them do it. Holding an employee hostage because in order to leave they have to write a check for a significant part of their life savings won't be productive. They're taking up a salary from someone who will actually be engaged and motivated.

In my experience, this definitely plays into individuals' job offer decisionmaking. At least the most sophisticated ones, which are usually the ones you're most interested in recruiting.