People think "wow, options for 1% of the company. If the whole company is worth $1B, that's $10M!" but that's wrong - the options have an exercise price, which must be realistic at the time of grant. So if the company is already worth $100M, and at the time you can exercise is worth $110M, your 1% options are worth exactly $100K.

And about 83b: it doesn't protect you from tax. It just locks in a specific value for tax purposes (but you have to pay the tax at that second). It's an artificial tax event, which may be in your favor if things work out well, but has immediate costs regardless.