Well $60,000 is "only" 30 times what the NYT article said so that would make sense.
nytimes.com 
I believe FB got a first round of funding back then of $500,000. I talked about this with a friend on fb and he dug up the following:
" In late 2004, Peter Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook for a 10% stake, valuing FB at $5 million."
So, $60,000 would be about 1% before dilution from further funding if that quote is accurate.
But the NYT article makes it sound like much less:
"In 2005, Mr. Choe was invited to paint murals on the walls of Facebook’s first offices in Palo Alto, Calif., by Sean Parker, then Facebook’s president. As pay, Mr. Parker offered Mr. Choe a choice between cash in the “thousands of dollars,” according to several people who know Mr. Choe, or stock then worth about the same. "
The NYT article said "Many “advisers” to the company at that time, which is how Mr. Choe would have been classified, would have received about 0.1 to 0.25 percent of the company, according to a former Facebook employee. That may sound like a paltry amount, but a stake that size is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, based on a market value of $100 billion. Mr. Choe’s payment is valued at roughly $200 million, according to a number of people who know Mr. Choe and Facebook executives."
I just can't see an artist getting paid a few "thousands" of dollars getting a much bigger stake than important advisers to the company unless Parker paid him with some of his own shares. |
