Science
Artist Accepted 0.25% Facebook Stock Instead Of $60k—And Struck Gold
When he painted Facebook’s original headquarters over twenty years ago, one artist won gold by accepting stock options as payment instead of cash. Stocks are typically risky, especially for nascent businesses with unpredictable trajectories.
Since all businesses must start somewhere, it has become somewhat of a trend for new businesses to provide shares to consultants and staff as compensation or incentives as part of the long-term process.
When a corporation goes public, those who are fortunate enough can become millionaires overnight, but more often than not, things don’t go as planned since businesses falter and fail over time.
According to Market Realist, artist David Choe went through the identical procedure after being hired by Napster founder and Facebook president at the time, Sean Parker, to paint murals depicting Silicon Valley at the company’s first headquarters.
What was David Choe paid by Facebook?
When Choe finished his artwork inside Facebook’s offices, he was famously offered the choice between 0.25% of Facebook stock or a $60,000 upfront payment.
The majority of people would laugh at the stock option since it is undoubtedly a terrible and extremely hazardous decision to turn down tens of thousands of dollars for money that you might only receive later.
Parker pushed that he accept the stock, and we’re betting he’s glad he did today. Choe undoubtedly shared this opinion, thinking Facebook and social media in general were a “joke” that had little chance of succeeding.
Although it’s unclear exactly how many stock options Choe’s 0.25% share was worth when he was given them, the artist made an incredible $200,000,000—333,233% more than the initial $60,000 he could have taken—when Facebook’s long-awaited public offering in 2012 valued stocks at $38 per share.
How much would Choe’s stock be worth today?
As previously stated, there is no reliable method of determining the precise number of shares Choe owned at the time Facebook went public, and the switch to Meta does complicate matters somewhat. However, at $38 per share and a $104 billion total valuation, there were probably 2,736,842,105 shares in total.
Choe would therefore have an even larger wealth given the current price of Meta stock, which would indicate that he had around 6,842,105 shares, albeit this was probably somewhat less given the inflated $200 million number.
As of this writing, the price of each individual Meta Platforms share is $719.01, which would equal $4,919,541,916 throughout Choe’s 0.25% interest. If Choe had held onto them, Forbes would rank him as the 776th richest person in the world.
What did he spend the money on?
Since Choe had been waiting for the commission for years, it is understandable that he sold his Facebook stakes as soon as the business went public.
One of his most well-known uses of the money was a nationwide scavenger hunt with a $100,000 grand prize, which he stored in a shoebox in his bed. It appears that he also didn’t give the money much thought.
In addition, he organised a lavish and private art show in Los Angeles that, although free to attend, required applicants to complete a drawn-out application process and sign a non-disclosure agreement to ensure that the public would not know what was on display.
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