Excerpt: As the trading price of many tech stocks has plummeted in recent months, thousands of Silicon Valley workers have seen the value of their employee stock options sink rapidly underwater. The cost of exercising some options is now higher than the value of the company stock for about 4,600 workers at Advanced Micro Devices -- which means those options are currently worthless. One analyst has estimated the same is true for 6,400 workers at Google. It's been a problem for 1,100 employees at VMware, which this fall offered to exchange old options for new ones with a lower strike price. 'It's a huge issue in the tech industry,' said analyst Brett Harsen of the compensation advisory firm Radford Surveys and Consulting, who noted that Silicon Valley has long relied on stock options to recruit and reward top talent and even mid-level employees. He predicted a wave of tech companies will ask shareholders for authority to address the issue by repricing or exchanging old options in coming months.  MORE >>