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My understanding is the ‘secondary market’ is normally based around people selling actual shares and you’re required to have approval from the company before you can sell shares on secondary markets.

The company can do this for the same reason they can force employees to wait six months after IPO to sell their shares, it’s in the contract you sign when exercising your options.

Which is why selling options is a loophole…

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You don’t sell options, you obtain financing to exercise options, with said financing backed by the converter stock produced from the options you’re exercising. Terms are fucking _brutal_, but when you’ve spent a decade at a company with no exit in sight, your hand can be forced. Hence why there’s a market for this.

Brutal terms, but they can be terms where if the company fails to IPO you aren’t in debt. It’s just a question of how much risk you want to take on vs how much upside you need to give up.

Worst case you can always exercise whatever portion of your options you can afford and accept the inherent risks for doing so.

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