2 approaches:<p>1) you pay the strike, and pray the valuation continues to rise through any IPO, buyout, etc..<p>2) arbitrage - you pay the low strike, then sell in the secondary market for more, and hopefully realize a one-time profit after cost frictions.<p>From the article, sounds like most of the afflicted here were playing strategy (1), while there was some window to execute on (2) though many may have not noticed it.