Klompen, I think you are correct about "And the 4 million shares Peter said he owned may have been bought before he joined the team", or at least some of his shares.

At 33:25 of the CIC meeting, Peter states "I was actually an investor in the company, a good friend of mine had put me into the investment, he was in the investment, because Mike [White] had put him in the investment."

So, this seems to confirm that he invested before joining POET, so he may not have been misleading anyone about buying shares at $0.17

Good luck!!