Techub News message: NVIDIA’s early advisor and virtual reality pioneer Eric Gullichsen said the company promised him 25,000 stock options in 1993, but actually granted only 15,625. Under his options agreement, all options were to vest one year later, while NVIDIA followed a four-year vesting schedule. After multiple stock splits, the missing 9,375 options are now equivalent to about 4.5 million shares. Based on the Oct. 2 closing price of $233.95, their value is approximately $1.05 billion. Gullichsen said NVIDIA did not challenge the authenticity of the agreement documents, but his claim was responded to through the external law firm Cooley, which argued his claim was filed after the statute of limitations had expired. In California, the general statute of limitations for written contracts is four years. Gullichsen’s attorney expects the case to be dismissed due to the limitations issue, so no lawsuit was formally filed.