What infuriated me was that I had to do all the leg work and paper work and it was only when the money for the sale went into an escrow that the company rejected the offer. So they wasted a lot of people's time unfortunately - mine, the broker and the buyers time. The companies "preferred buyer" turned out to be some Hollywood big wig. And my guess is that they never had any intention of letting my proposed sale go through.

One curious thing I learned is that although this practice of selling options on the secondary markets by "worker bees" was strongly "discouraged" because it was seen as a sign of not believing in the company, it turns out the execs were all selling their options left and right and had been doing so for years.

ROFR isn't that bad. What is bad is some contracts have a call option on your stock at FMV price, even when you exercise.