Startups often pay a shitty salary in exchange for a decent chunk of stock options, with the implicit promise that you'll make bank if you work hard and make the company successful.

Getting screwed out of your payout by such a totally-not-an-acquisition is wage theft. It's like promising a sales-related bonus at the beginning of the year, and then in December changing the metric to "AI-related sales to the CEO's golf buddies".

If part of their remuneration is in shares, they have a legitimate interest in the value of those shares.