It is the context that is important here, and the context is 'startup transitioning from privately held to publicly traded'. And the point of view is 'non-founder' employee with incentive stock options.

Prior to being publicly traded, stock options at a start up are essentially worthless. If you exercise them you have to pay tax on them, and generally if you did exercise them nobody would buy them from you. So worthless. And while it is perfectly fun to say "everyone says" or "at the last raise" this company is worth $x and my share of that would be $y, if you've been around you know that that number is also grossly inaccurate. Because really there are things like liquidation preferences, assignment to creditors, and all sorts of other legal maneuvers that do one thing, they convert unvested incentive stock options for common stock into a value slightly less than the recycled paper they are printed on.

So when you transition from the realm of 'privately held' to 'publicly traded', two magical things happen. First, all shares convert to common stock (although possibly separate classes of stock), and you can sell those shares that you either already own, or you become the owner of by paying the 'strike' price on your vested options and taking possession of them.

Always, in that last moment, and Blue Apron was no exception, as the cap table is re-balanced and the company prepares to be a 'real' publicly traded entity, employee stock options get dealt with. In part because there is going to be a new option pool allocated for giving out to new employees or refreshing grants of existing employees, and because sometimes the bankers taking the company make it part of their terms and conditions in order to take the company public.

The grand result, the finale if you will, is that on the day the company you work for goes public, you get crystal clarity on exactly how many shares you have options to buy, when you will be able to buy them, and what you will pay for them to buy them. And if that day comes, and on the other side of the opening bell of the NYSE or NASDAQ that day you have more than 10,000 shares in options, with a strike price that is lower than the current price, there is a big psychological pump attached to your brain.

I've seen it happen to literally hundreds of my peers as they and I made that switch. And now, while watching the ticker tape on CNBC or the headline news, occasionally the new ticker symbol for your company will go across the bottom with either a +nn or -nn next to it for going up or down in price. And if you own at least 10,000 shares in options it is like watching a car appear and disappear in your future as it goes up and down, or a house down payment, or a college fund. It is potential wealth made actual right in front of your eyes and sometimes it is impossible to take your eye off the ticker.

And since movements of a few dollars is common in freshly traded companies it can drive you nuts. During the dot.com days a friend of mine and I would joke about being "up two Porsche's today", "oops, we've lost about a Porsche and a half today" where we had chosen $50,000 to represent the value of one Porsche sports car.

And so, if you are in that context (and a bunch of Blue Apron employees are today, just like SNAP employees were earlier) and if this is suddenly your single largest "investment" because yesterday your stock was unsaleable and today you could sell it[1] what happened in that twilight moment between private and pubic can get oddly personal and twisted.

That is especially true if there was a big reverse split or if the entire company sort of stepped from one place to another and converted your vested options in the old company into unvested options in the new company.

It is also perversely irrelevant what percentage of the company you own if your current option value, after paying the strike price, is more money than you've ever had at one time before.

[1] Often there are restrictions and lock ups and black out periods and all sorts of constraints, except as many people know if you don't work for the company. So in the dot com days people would quit, exercise, and sell because once they quit the restrictions came off.