I start with the story of David Choe, you can call him the smartest graffiti artist of all time. If you do, I believe many would be by your side apart from maybe those who may want to see what he did as nothing more than pure gambling.
There is actually a thin line separating investment and gambling in that both of them contain a measure of uncertainty and a measure of hope.
In 2005 David Chow was to make graffiti Paintings in Facebook first headquarters. When he finished his paintings, he was supposed to be paid $60,000 for that. I know you’re about to ask who pays that kind of money for a graffiti, but you have to know he was pretty famous before then as he had painted for a few famous individuals prior to that. Besides art is worth as much as one is willing to pay.
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According to this CNBC extract “Choe’s work caught the eye of Sean Parker, founder of Napster. In 2005, after Parker became president of then-fledgling start-up Facebook, he hired Choe to deck out its original headquarters in Silicon Valley with murals.”
“My prices had been going higher and higher and I was like, ‘Yeah, I mean, if you want me to paint the entire building, it’s going to be 60, you know, 60 grand,” Choe told his interviewer Howard Stern an American radio and television personality.
At that time Choe hated the social media and there was no guarantee whatsoever neither was their any clue that Facebook would amount to anything tangible.
Instead of receiving cash for his work, he chose to get paid in stocks.
In 2005 it was worth $60,000. By 2012 it had gone up to $200,000,000 and as at 2017, it was worth $500,000,000.
It’s difficult to draw a lesson from this, as even Chow himself never expected to get this fortunate. But at least he took his chance on something that has a probability of success.
Maybe one can take home the fact that somehow he managed to see that investing $60,000 dollars was better than just allowing it to lie dormant in the bank. Oh, I almost forgot that even if you decide to save it in the bank, the banks would do business with your money, only without your consent. That could be one reason why he should be considered smart.
Or the fact that he made them pay so much just for a piece of graffiti .
Another reason why he deserves some credit is because he was able to negotiate out the part where he got paid in stocks. Many would have walked away with cash.
Also you can consider the fact that he didn’t eventually change his mind along the line and sell his shares. He understood he had to wait, and he actually did the waiting. Many would have cashed out at some point. More like the maxim – A bird in hand is better than two in the forest. At least, he had more than one bird at hand as the money he invested wasn’t all that he had. He had more, and was able to put aside a fraction for investment. There are risks involved in virtually all activities, it just depends on the kind of risks you’re accustomed to taking.