YMMV, but this worked out quite well for me. In my case I'd worked with the founder at their prior startup, where they saw a nice exit (but I was too late to s

YMMV, but this worked out quite well for me. In my case I'd worked with the founder at their prior startup, where they saw a nice exit (but I was too late to significantly benefit). When I later joined their next startup, they offered a no interest loan to early exercise my options, so that I could go the 83b route and see some tax benefit. Like I said, this ended up working out quit well for me.