The proper way to do this for a non public company is to settle the stock for RSU based on the vesting schedule AND an exit (IPO/acquisition). This way you don't technically own the stock and have to pay taxes until there's liquidity. I believe this is how a lot of the bigger unicorns are issuing RSUs now.
That article is terrible, please do not use this to make decisions. Just about every "downside" he lists could also apply to an option grant. All equity grants will come with an agreement and restrictions on whom you can sell them to and under what circumstances, whether options or RSUs. Worse, he goes on for quite some time about how little upside you have with RSU. That has NOTHING to do with the RSU itself- it comes because companies that issue them typically do not have much growth left in them, not because it is a RSU vs an option. The differences between them are...
1. Tax treatment (A RSU counts as income when you receive it, an option counts as income when you exercise it and get stock. Remember, many people recommend early exercising options anyway for preferable tax treatment, though this can lead to taking a loss on taxes if the shares wind up worthless. If you are forced to exercise a large block of options when they are still illiquid, you will have a very large one time tax bill, which may be much harder to deal with than smaller ones each year)
2. Risk (For options, you have to dish out cash from your pocket to actually receive stock, which is more risky than if you don't. Until exercise, the two choices are similar)
In general, I would prefer options with a long exercise period, but I may prefer RSU to options with a short one...
So are options. Options at a public company can typically be exercised and sold as an atomic operation from the owner's perspective, with the exercise price (and taxes) being extracted from the sale's proceeds.
http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-restricted-stock-and-...