Bec Oakes
When an artist was given the choice of how he'd like to be paid for a piece of art he'd created in the Facebook headquarters, his risky decision left him rolling in cash.
David Choe is an artist, musician, actor, and former journalist and podcast host from Los Angeles, California.
He starred alongside Ali Wong and Steven Yeun in the Netflix series Beef and, as a painter, is best known for his murals which often explore themes of desire, degradation and exaltation in a style he calls 'dirty style.'
Advert
In 2005, Choe was commissioned by internet entrepreneur and Facebook's first president, Sean Parker to create graphic sexual murals in the social media site's Silicon Valley office.
Then, when Facebook's headquarters moved to a different premises in 2007, he was once again asked to paint more murals for the company, although with a much tamer theme.
At the time, Choe was offered a choice about how he'd like to be payed for the murals he'd painted.
Parker offered the artist either $60,000 or 0.25 per cent stock in the company.
Although he thought the Facebook business model was 'ridiculous and pointless,' according to an interview with The New York Times, Choe chose to receive the company stock.
And his decision certainly paid off, with the artist's shares in the company being worth a whopping $200 million on the eve that the company went public in 2012, more than 30 times as much as the original cash offer.
X users were in awe when they learnt about the deal, saying it was 'amazing' and calling Choe a 'legend.'
But, the artist came under fire earlier this year when comments he'd made about sexual assault on his DVDASA podcast back in 2014 resurfaced following the success of Beef.
In resurfaced footage, which was shared widely on social media at the time, the 47-year-old recalled an alleged sexual assault of a massage therapist.
He claimed that he touched the female masseuse and demanded she perform a sex act on him and called himself a 'successful rapist.'
"The thrill of possibly going to jail, you know, that’s what achieved the erection quest," Choe can be heard saying.
Choe later released a statement in which he apologized for any hurt his comments had caused and assured people that it was just a joke.
"I’m sorry if anyone believed that the stories were fact," he said. "They were not!"