TORONTO – The founder and CEO of GoPro is making headlines after fulfilling a decade-old promise to his college roommate and it’s costing him millions.
Nick Woodman, who heads the camera maker, gave almost 5 million shares of the company — now worth $229 million to Neil Dana — his first employee and roommate at the University of Southern California at San Diego.
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Woodman had promised to give Dana 10 per cent of any money he made from selling the company more than 10 years ago, according to Bloomberg.
Woodman founded GoPro in 2004, which began by making wrist straps for small cameras before expanding into the portable and extremely durable cameras.
By 2011, GoPro had grown into the highly profitable company and, at Woodman’s request, issued Dana 6.3 million in stock options., Bloomberg reported. Woodman said he would cover the cost out of his own holdings whenever Dana chose to exercise those options.
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Dana, who is also the GoPro’s director of music and specialty sales, cashed in his stock this week.
Woodman kept his word and, according to an SEC filing, he reimbursed the company for 4.6 million his own stock back to GoPro on May 11 to repay the company for granting the options to Dana.
Based on the value of GoPro shares on Wednesday, Woodman’s compensated his company to the tune of roughly U.S. $229 million or more than $274 million CND.
The CEO won’t be strapped for cash however. According to Bloomberg, he is still worth more than $2.3 billion and in 2014 was the highest-paid U.S. executive.
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