Friday, February 3, 2012

Graffiti artist to become multi-millionaire thanks to Facebook bet in 2005 | Digital Trends

Artist David Choe painted some murals in Facebook's offices back in 2005. When asked about how he'd like to be paid for his work, he had a 50/50 choice. His decision looks set to make him a multi-millionaire.
Imagine it’s 2005. You’re a muralist and graffiti artist making a modest living from your trade, much of which involves decorating the offices of businesses. Then you get a call from a guy named Sean Parker, president of a company called Facebook. Facebook? It rings a bell. You Google it and see that it’s an Internet start-up which began doing business only a year earlier.
Anyway, this guy Parker is inviting you to paint Facebook’s offices in Palo Alto, California. He offers you payment in one of two ways—either thousands of dollars in cash, or stock worth approximately the same. So what’s it going to be?
This is exactly what happened to artist David Choe. And despite thinking at the time that the idea of Facebook was “pointless and ridiculous,” the 35-year-old went for the stock option and presumably watched with his jaw resting firmly on the ground as the company grew way beyond anything he could’ve imagined, culminating in an IPO filing this week that will likely leave Choe worth somewhere in the region of $200 million when the company goes public later in the year.

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