companies like Coinbase and Pinterest and
Hari Raghavan, ex-COO of Forge, on late-stage investing and facilitating secondary sales
Longer option exercise windows and recurring tenders are how mature private companies turn equity from a paper promise into real compensation. A seven year post-termination window lets former employees keep vested options without rushing to spend cash and trigger taxes within 90 days. Regular tenders do the next step, they create actual sell opportunities, which is why companies like SpaceX run them every 6 to 12 months once they are deep into the pre-IPO stage.
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These two tools solve different problems. Extended exercise windows help someone keep the right to buy shares later. A tender helps someone sell shares now. One reduces forced forfeiture risk, the other creates liquidity and price discovery.
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This becomes necessary when companies stay private for a decade or more. By that stage, early employees may have vested equity but also rent, mortgages, or tax bills. Structured liquidity keeps talent aligned without forcing an IPO just to get people cash.
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SpaceX is the clearest example of the tender model becoming routine. Internal tenders have repeatedly reset its valuation and given employees and investors periodic exits, showing how the biggest private companies now operate more like privately traded companies than traditional illiquid startups.
The next step is more companies adopting both policies together, longer exercise windows for fairness, plus recurring issuer run tenders for actual liquidity. That combination pushes late stage startups toward a middle ground between private and public, where they can stay private longer without asking employees and early investors to wait indefinitely for value to become real.