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# Luckiest Artist in the World Set to Make $200M from Facebook Stock
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/david-choe-facebook/
- Published: 2012-02-02T14:51:27.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:36:55.000Z
- Description: According to Business Insider, "[Street] artist David Choe painted the inside of Facebook's first headquarters back in 2005, and Mark Zuckerberg made him an offer: he could be paid a few thousand dollars in cash, or take the same amount in Facebook stock." Choe took the stock and now it's worth $200
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: News, David Choe, Facebook, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/02/david-choe-home.jpg "david-choe-HOME")

This is going to be the first in a long line of WTF stories that we’re going to be hearing from the Facebook IPO.

According to [Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/this-graffiti-artist-took-stock-for-painting-facebooks-first-hq-now-its-worth-200-million-2012-2?ref=hyperallergic.com), “\[Street\] artist David Choe painted the inside of Facebook’s first headquarters back in 2005, and Mark Zuckerberg made him an offer: he could be paid a few thousand dollars in cash, or take the same amount in Facebook stock.” Choe took the stock and now it’s worth $200 million. Yes, you heard that right. Bravo to Choe for taking a chance and not going for the easy money.

The *New York Times* has the [full story](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/technology/for-founders-to-decorators-facebook-riches.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) but did they just call Choe a “decorator”? Then again, Choe wasn’t exactly a social media fortune teller. A *New York Times* blog [reports](http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/and-he-thought-facebook-was-ridiculous/?ref=hyperallergic.com):

> Although \[Choe\] said the very idea of Facebook seemed “ridiculous and pointless” at the time, he chose the stock.

Sometimes a gamble pays off.