The INsider

How a graffiti artist tagged Facebook for a $200M payday

David Choe's choice of stock over cash for murals was the real art of this deal

By IN Staff

February 2, 2012 3:00 pm ET

In the art world, fortunes are usually made when a wealthy collector invests in works by a young talent and sees his or her art rise in value along with the artist's reputation.

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In the case of graffiti artist David Choe, those roles have been more or less reversed.

In 2005, Mr. Choe was invited by Sean Parker, then Facebook's president, to paint graphic sexual murals at its Palo Alto, Calif., offices, according to an article in The New York Times.

As payment, Choe was offered the choice of “thousands of dollars” or stock in the startup. Despite feeling that Facebook was “ridiculous and pointless,” he chose the shares, amounting to 0.1% to 0.25% of the company, according to one ex-Facebooker's guess.

When Facebook goes public, Choe's windfall stands to be around $200 million — that is, if he hasn't sold some of his shares already.

As a successful artist with gallery shows and pieces in major museums, Mr. Choe wasn't hurting before, though.

Facebook has moved its headquarters since 2005, but the murals were salvaged. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg commissioned Mr. Choe in 2007 to paint murals at the company's new headquarters.