That’s essentially a signing bonus. Remember that you will owe income tax on that. So if they paid the option price and 83b’d you then you would be on the hook

That’s essentially a signing bonus. Remember that you will owe income tax on that. So if they paid the option price and 83b’d you then you would be on the hook for taxes (the money they used to exercise) on an asset that could be worth 0 one day. The company could however pay for exercising and pay the income tax on that cost. Then it would be interesting.