5 ms·
How an individual can leave $850M on the table to prove a point blows my mind. I'm in awe at that guy, but I can't help but think that with $850M he could have
by Jyaif 8y ago
How an individual can leave $850M on the table to prove a point blows my mind.
I'm in awe at that guy, but I can't help but think that with $850M he could have funded so many interesting projects/research.
- tehlike 8y agoNow think of the day fb stock dropped 20% just over the course of few hours...
- jiveturkey 8y agowhen you’ve already got $4bn, it’s not that hard.
- cryptozeus 8y agoWhen you have money and principles you believe in, its not that hard.
- icebraining 8y agoHow many times have you walked away from 9 digit sums?
- shawabawa3 8y agoThe same number of times i've received 10 digit sums
- the_duke 8y agoI'd call it suboptimal. Why not wait out the few months, then donate all the money to privacy focused NGOs / investing in competing businesses? That would be a much more impactful way of proving a point, imo.
- JetSpiegel 8y agoTaking the cake and eat it. Shkreli could donate some of the profits of EpiPen for patients, should this be considered a net positive?
- retsibsi 8y agoDepends on how much good that would do, and how much harm he did to get it. But the_duke suggested donating all of the extra money. That's not having your cake and eating it -- where's the selfish benefit?
- blihp 8y agoHe tried to do what he thought was right and lost. Then tried to maximize the cash per his agreement and lost. So he did the math and realized that he could spend a chunk of his life most likely either fighting in court and/or being made miserable in exchange for a sum of money he absolutely didn't need. I think he made the right call given his situation. Though this should be (yet another) cautionary tale: when you sell your company, the deal is that you are giving up control in exchange for cash/stock. You can generally stand either on the moral high ground or a mound of cash, rarely can you do both.
- vl 8y agoBut it's relative, he already cashed out $3B by this pont? The way I see it he evaluated harm to his health and well-being from doing something he didn't want vs vesting tail of his grant and chose a sane option, because he already vested enough. Similar stories on smaller scale happen all the time with VPs and directors after re-orgs.
- em500 8y agoHe choose to leave with 3.6bln instead of 4.5bln to make a point. I have no idea how to evaluate the weight of such a sacrifice at levels like these.