> If you'd taken the cash and immediately invested all of it in NFLX, you'd have $400,000.

But you can take the cash and immediately invest it all in NFLX options. That should be the baseline for comparison, when answering "why would one pick options vs cash"?

I'd imagine you _must_ have some benefits to pick options. Perhaps tax treatment is better; perhaps you pay less fees than buying them yourself. But still, there must be some incentive to pick NFLX options from the company, instead of picking whatever options you want from your broker.

(also, the flip side to your example: if NFLX drops 1% because of market conditions outside of your control, and the options are close to expiration, you now don't have $297000 .... you now have $0).