Something similar but less severe happened to me with AirWave, an IdeaLab company, which got bought by Aruba in about 2007, after I left. The company had been through several rounds of expensive failed strategies and ensuing financing in the years before I joined, and so the stock option grants to the employees were quite small, as a percentage of the company. Some of the details are a little fuzzy in my memory now, but I did get paid for my shares: something like a month or two worth of the salary I'd earned during the three years I was there. (I think I wasn't fully vested, but mostly.)
The employees still at the company received substantial retention bonuses. The only one of these bonuses disclosed in the purchase papers I signed was that the president got an additional bonus of perhaps a year's salary, but later other employees told me they got substantial retention bonuses, too.
I don't feel like I got "screwed", exactly. I was a bit disappointed in the quantity, but it was a big improvement over what happened with KnowNow, where I never got back any of the US$6000 or so I spent to exercise my options, as the company's successive VC-approved management teams gradually mismanaged the company into bankruptcy.
The employees still at the company received substantial retention bonuses. The only one of these bonuses disclosed in the purchase papers I signed was that the president got an additional bonus of perhaps a year's salary, but later other employees told me they got substantial retention bonuses, too.
I don't feel like I got "screwed", exactly. I was a bit disappointed in the quantity, but it was a big improvement over what happened with KnowNow, where I never got back any of the US$6000 or so I spent to exercise my options, as the company's successive VC-approved management teams gradually mismanaged the company into bankruptcy.