Look out, Silicon Valley. Some of your most famous and nerdiest residents will be walking around with even fatter pockets now that Facebook's IPO has gone off smoothly. From the social network’s first investors to Bono and an artist whose spray-paint creations earned him one of the largest paychecks in art history, The Daily Beast presents the entrepreneurs who changed their status updates Friday to “payday.”
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Shares: 533 million
Worth: $20.3 billion
The founder and CEO, Zuckerberg has maintained undisputed control of his company as he’s grown it from dorm-room startup to international phenomenon. And if anyone can be said to deserve the massive payoff that will come with Facebook’s IPO, it’s him. Over the course of a whirlwind eight years, Zuckerberg went toe-to-toe with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, built the nascent company’s staff, struck a deal to sell a 1.6 percent take to Microsoft, developed Chat and the News Feed, and moved his company to new offices at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park, California.
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Shares: 201.4 million
Worth: $7.68 billion
Breyer, a partner at Accel, also holds a seat on the Facebook board. The venture capitalist insured a big payoff for himself and his company when Accel invested $12.7 million early in the game. So impressed with Zuckerberg’s creation was Breyer that he poured an additional $1 million of his own, buying a personal stake of about 1 percent. Breyer was also an early investor in Chicago-based startup Groupon.
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Shares: 133.8 million
Worth: $5.1 billion
Moskovitz should thank his alma mater with a healthy check to Harvard University Housing. The 27-year-old entrepreneur was born eight days earlier than Harvard roommate and Facebook co-founder Zuckerberg, which makes Moskovitz the youngest billionaire in the United States. After leaving Facebook in 2008, Moskovitz returned to the world of startups by founding a company called Asana with another former Facebook employee. Like Zuckerberg, he shuns an outwardly opulent lifestyle, and has pledged to give away most of his wealth in philanthropic pursuits.
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Shares: 44.7 million
Worth: $1.7 billion
The PayPal co-founder and prominent venture capitalist was Facebook’s first investor, signing a check for $500,000 in 2004. That investment turned into 10.2 percent equity in the company, but Thiel’s stake has since been diminished by sales and dilution. Portrayed in The Social Network as a scheming technocrat, Thiel saw his first success when he sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billlion in 2002. Thiel used his share of that money to found a hedge fund called Clarium. A libertarian, Thiel is an evangelist for the entrepreneurial mindset, and started a fellowship in his name that gives under-20s $100,000 to forgo college.
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Shares: 3.77 million
Worth: $143.9 million
This likely isn’t what is meant by the adage that a true work of art improves with time. Seven years ago, graffiti artist David Choe pocketed 3.77 million shares of Facebook as payment for murals he painted in its Palo Alto offices. At the time, Choe reportedly said then that he thought Facebook “ridiculous and pointless.” Now, with the stock estimated to go for $35 a share, Choe shouldn’t have any trouble affording paintbrushes for a while. Choe has told reporters that he started spray painting as a way of expressing his anger, and according to an autobiographical essay published in 2010, Choe spent some time homeless after 1992.
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Shares: 3.6 million
Worth: $137.4 million
The co-founder of Netscape and creator of Mosaic, one of the first Web browsers, Andreessen now sits on the Facebook board. Andreessen has also invested in Twitter, and is co-founder of the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The seat Andreessen filled on Facebook’s board is one of two seats other than his own controlled by Zuckerberg, and it may not be the only way in which Andreessen is at the founder’s right hand—Andreessen is said to be something of a mentor and trusted adviser to the younger man.
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Shares: 1.9 million
Worth: $72.5 million—at least!
This amount may represent only the smallest fraction of what Facebook’s COO could make from the company’s going public. According to Facebook’s S-1 filing, she stands to collect as many as 38 million additional shares if she continues to work with the company. Based on a valuation of Facebook at $35 a share, that would bring her total stake to nearly $1.5 billion. Before joining Facebook, Sandberg was Google’s vice president for global online sales and operations until she had an hour-long conversation with Zuckerberg at a Silicon Valley Christmas party in 2007. Sandberg had been looking for a new challenge, and though she’d been approached about becoming an executive at the Washington Post Company, she took Zuckerberg’s offer instead.
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Shares (estimate): 39.5 million
Worth (estimate): $1.5 billion
It’s a beautiful day for Bono, who is set to become the richest rock musician in the world. The U2 frontman’s shares in Facebook were worth roughly $1.5 billion by the end of trading on Friday, which would make his net worth skyrocket past that of Paul McCartney, who currently holds the title of world’s richest rock star and is believed to be worth roughly $1.05 billion. Bono owns 2.3 percent of Facebook via his aptly named investment firm Elevation Partners, which bought $90 million worth of Facebook shares in 2009.
Plus, full coverage of Facebook's IPO.
