[indigochill]

This isn't really conflicting with my observation that they're a known quantity, though. You could still look and say "Gee, this company has been behaving like a monopoly for years and their stock is overvalued - they're probably going to face setbacks soon, so I probably shouldn't take their stock options at face value".

My point isn't that the curves will stay steady or increase, but that you have historical data on them to draw an informed conclusion, bullish or bearish, which just isn't the case with startups.