Cannot help expressing my curiosity about this issue.

First of all, Russia, a country, I live in, as far as I understand, is a virgin land on this matter. Motivation is purely developed here and options are not existed at all. So, I am absolutely not aware about this.

I roughly understand the mechanism of options. And, as far as I understand, the major white spot in the whole that story, how much will a singe share cost. How much will I get from all those N x 1000 options?

I see two ways one can get money from the business: 1. Business goes IPO !!! 2. Business is sold as a whole to another owner.

Next way is rather questionable about getting money: 3. Business goes without IPO "forever" (a generation would rather die before it IPO).

I am also interested some explanations about situation ?3. Situation ?1 is clear - market decides everything, you either wait for stock price you satisfied or sell everything now. But topic is rather about ?2 - business is sold to another business.

I am considering the following model:

I am well payed specialist with company X. Somebody, with a company Y makes me an offer. Y is a startup. They cannot offer me much money and cannot overbid my salary, but they grow fast and hope to be bought soon.

Instead of money, they offer me N x 1000 options. My problem is "how to assess this offer against my current, stable and well-payed job"?

Are there any average cost of virtual share during selling one company to another? Are there any average stock price companies prefer to go to IPO? Are there any barriers against spreading the value of sock before selling the company or IPO (hiring too much people with options package too fast will decrease each package value, I mean)?

Are there any good articles with explanations? Is all that somehow written in the law?