<p><pre><code>   &gt; Even with a public event, employees have a 180 day 
   &gt; lockup period before they can sell any vested options.
</code></pre>
It varies, when I was acquired in 1999 we could choose to dispose up to half our proceeds, it was negotiated as part of the deal. I also had an insane 18 month lockout which took me from pre-crash to post-crash and a 144x difference in stock price ($120&#x2F;share vs $0.83&#x2F;share)