I don't have anything useful to add but just want to say, like many others have said, I really appreciate the way you have continued to document your journey from start to today and not shied away from sharing details. Thank you for that!
> compensation is considered regular income for the year it is awarded based on the difference between the strike price and the market price
Isn't that exactly how it works? Your grant price just determines your number of your shares. When your shares vest they get taxed as regular income for the entirety of the vest amount.
The average new grad in a consulting company like TCS/Wipro/Infosys has started at around 3.6-4.8k usd/year for like the past decade. I think Accenture would also be in similar range but not sure.
Well, it's also typically the last place you get the opportunity to make a whole bunch of friendships before heading out into the adult world where it requires much more effort.
Claim two sounded a bit suspicious so I checked the quote:
" He promised, despite unhappy faces from his engineers, that it would take fewer years than he had fingers on his right hand before they were available to everyone – although the price wasn't mentioned."
Now admittedly my workaround ended up being uh... Google Drive.