10 Percent for You, my Friend: GoPro Founder in a Generous Mood

Big-hearted CEO of GoPro Inc. keeps lavish proposal to give a 10 percent in company shares to his college friend.

Let’s face it, most of us would rapidly forget about such promises made. Like, when we vow to our friends that if we win on this or that English poker site, we will definitely give some money to them. But, when we do win on these mobile casinos, the proceedings that would go to our friends, fade into oblivion.

Well, Nick Woodman did not forget his pledge that he made over ten years (!) ago and gave his old college roommate ten percent of company shares. This amounts to a massive USD 229 million. I wish I had a college friend like that… Neil Dana was also Woodman’s first employee in the company.

Dana got total access to six million stock options

Dana (now operating as GoPro’s director of music and specialty sales,) got six million stock options at first. Then, an additional 270,000 restricted stock units were added. According to gambling news, the CEO guaranteed that he would pay back very penny to GoPro if his friend decided to take out his money.

It was this week that Dana decided that it was time to cash in: he paid USD 3.6 million to use up his options. This concluded in a USD 229 million win for him, and the same in minus for his friend. Fortunately, however, the amount won’t have an effect on Woodman’s livelihood: his net worth is USD 2.3 billion.