> RSUs [...] evaporate if you leave or are fired from the company. You can not purchase them like stock options.
RSUs do not evaporate. Vested RSUs are yours outright. You cannot purchase them because they are already "purchased".
> So you have to stick around until the company becomes public.
In both cases, the RSU or the stock underlying an option, it is equally worthless until there is a liquidity event.
> Oh they also expire in five years
Companies don't even offer RSUs until they are close to being public. Once you reach a certain threshold of stockholders, you have to report financials. Since this is typically undesirable for private companies, they don't want to jump the gun on issuing RSUs instead of options. If the 5 years does pass without IPO, companies re-issue new grants. (Please: name one company that has actually expired RSUs and what happened)
OTOH most stock option grants expire in 90 days upon termination. This is a real expiry, and actual money out of your pocket (and tax liability) to exercies them, and usually a difficult decision. There are some places doing 10-year expiry but those are still the exception.
> The odds of stock options working out is low, but for RSU's they are much, much lower.
It's the opposite. For a private company, RSUs are much much closer to money in the bank than are options.
