Facebook Graffiti Artist Could be Worth $500 Million

Last week, Evelyn Rusli and write about people getting rich are set to arrive bidding up shares of initial public offerings. The most surprising is David Choe, a graffiti artist who pick up the shares instead of cash when he painted the first Facebook office in 2005.

Although Mr Choe declined several requests for an interview, while I was reporting a story that aired on Tuesday as a guest on The Howard Stern Show to discuss the windfall. (Warning: the conversation, as Mr Choe paintings, sex is very descriptive.)

After talking with a number of issues that are not safe for workplace discussion, Mr. Choe and Mr. Stern talked about graffiti artist money to make up your act.

Mr. Choe said that Facebook was initially offered $ 60,000 to paint a mural at the corporate offices in Palo Alto in 2005. Now, he said, the actions he takes his place will be worth more than $ 500 million.

Yes, that is to say, half a billion dollars to paint a mural.

But it is unclear how many indigenous people have left Mr Choe. Mr. Choe told Stern that he has all the original inhabitants and are sold at a few - maybe the secondary market. He declined to say how much.

Facebook clearly understand the value of Mr Choe mural. Once the company has exceeded its first office in Palo Alto and moved to a larger space, concrete walls covered with murals has been removed from the building and on display at the new office.

In his conversation with Mr. Stern, Mr. Choe reiterated their original feelings about Facebook in 2005, said: ". People will not remember, Facebook is a joke "However, his tone has changed since then. Mr. Choe talks about how much he likes, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the company. Mr. Choe also said recently painted the new home of free enterprise.

When Stern asked if he was "out of half his mind refused to $ 60,000," Choe said that "likes to play" and said that he believed Parker Sean, then president of Facebook, which has accepted Mr. Choe painted office.

As mentioned in our original article, the payment to Mr. Choe provide more money for the painting at Sotheby attracted a record $ 200.7 million in 2008 auction works by Damien Hirst.

Disruptions: Facebook Users Ask, 'Where's Our Cut?'

San Francisco - According to my calculations, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, I have about $ 50.

Without me, and other 844 999 999 perforations, and sharing sites like, Facebook is like a scene from the post-apocalyptic film "The Day After Tomorrow": sad, melancholy and really very sad. (Or MySpace, if that is easier to imagine.) Facebook ever be worth anything near the U.S. $ 100 million, which is well into the next IPO.

Company S-1 filing, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, Facebook boasts of its statistics: every year, people who "want" a billion things 91 billion photos are uploaded, half a billion people use Facebook on mobile phones, and hundreds of millions of those annoying "piercing".

So all this has left me with a question: Where is my part? I helped build this thing. Facebook and the house lay the foundations to put in plumbing, but put the walls, choosing furniture, painted and hung the pictures, and invite everyone to dinner.

So why am I asking for money from Facebook and Google? Although hundreds of IPOs related to technology over the past decade, Facebook is the first offering real social media service, in which the site content is entirely created by the user. (The closest, LinkedIn, there is a better business model, including the payment of a premium subscription.) "The idea that a company can benefit from social interaction is not as strange or new Many cafes and small restaurants that people meet, because they attract other people, "said M. Yannis Ioannidis, a professor of economics at Tufts University. ". What is unusual and new is that Facebook needs to access information about people to make a stronger business, "adding:" The owner does not use personal information about me and my friends to make money. "

Mr. Ioannides showed that social Web sites Facebook and can make two-way street finance. Facebook, for example, could pay the people who create content on the site. Companies can make money by matching the content of the ad, as it does now. As an alternative for people who are more personal, people can pay to use Facebook if you promise not to strain your personal information. In this way, everyone wins.

For my part, I feel more comfortable with Facebook to see through the portfolios of the phone book, and drawers of clothing if I knew it was going to charge for it.

Jaron Lanier, one of the deepest thinkers on the impact of technology on society and the "innovator in residence" at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California, concerned about companies like Facebook and Twitter users not pay them, while the fate of work to be rich people free user-generated content. Mr. Lanier said that as more money flows to build this network, distort and divide society. Those without the skills required in the new economy - in addition to Twitter and post a picture - could fall even further behind economically.

"This value comes from the people, none of them are self-created," Lanier said in an interview. He warned that if people do not think an economical solution for social networks, there may be a "serious social decline."

Sure, $ 50 might not seem like much money now, but if Facebook continues to grow as it has in the past, $ 4 billion in annual revenue could be in the tens of billions of billions of dollars a year. If that happens, I rely on the dividend.

Therefore, Mr. Zuckerberg, do not hesitate to message me on Facebook, and give you my address so you can send me a check - unless, as I suspect, you know where I live.

Causes Founder's $400M Facebook 'Mistake'

Joe Green is more likely that the roommate of Facebook you've never heard of, but a graduate of Harvard, is trying to make a difference in the world with friends.

Green does not have the name recognition the company's co-creator, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin or even, renowned helped launch Facebook, although I was there on the Internet entrepreneur in the room where he was born strength of social media. And he turned away from him.

Green is one of the friends of Zuckerberg at Harvard University in 2004, and asked the child, now estimated at 17.5 billion, to leave the Ivy League to join him in building social media sites, which are expected to submit an initial public offering this week.

After the two were arrested in some hot water with Harvard for the previous project - "hot-or-no" FaceMash site, the construction dramatized in the Oscar-winning film "The Social Network" - Green Zuckerberg finally said "no", because the schools threatened with dismissal.

His decision not to join Zuckerberg is now considered an error of $ 400 million.

"We have achieved a small problem with previous projects ... and my father, a teacher, not happy at the prospect that I am expelled from school, "Green said ABC News. "Zuckerberg like to tease my dad about it, but we're still very close."

Rather than follow Zuckerberg and his team of Silicon Valley, Green followed a passion for politics and worked for John Kerry's failed 2004 presidential campaign.

Now, although the initial decision, is back in the fold of Facebook, a business for profit is called the cause, Facebook application and a site that allows friends to their friends show love neighbor, causing social and even political candidates. The reason stated goal is "to allow anyone with a good idea or passion for change into effect in the world."

"The way to get people civically involved, not only during elections, but throughout the year, using Facebook and do it with their friends," said Green.

In the number increases, political candidates and campaigns aimed at social media to win elections. As President Obama has shown in 2008, social media has become a powerful political tool that can mobilize voters.

"You can not ignore," said Green. "It's like the TV ignoring or not ignoring, you know, mail. It became an important part of human life. "

Green says his company has helped raise $ 50 million for 50,000 charities, when the page that caused the "Facebook has 6.5 million active users monthly.

The New York Times reported in December, which received $ 9,000,000 to bring venture capital funding, bringing total funding of $ 16 million.

Green, with the words "no" to what became the Internet giant, has no regrets, even though Facebook has a lot of stock, which has found its own cause.

"Every person has the ability within themselves to make a difference," said Green.