Advertisement

Readers like you keep news free for everyone.

More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.

For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.

Support us today
Not now
Wednesday 6 December 2023 Dublin: 8°C
Shutterstock
whoops

This man sold his stake in a €220 million company for a bike

He described it as “the biggest mistake I ever made”.

SWIFTKEY CO-FOUNDER Chris Hill-Scott sold his stake in the company in exchange for a bicycle months after the company was founded, meaning he missed out on any of the £174 million (€220 million) Microsoft paid, according to The Times.

Hill-Scott is now a developer for the UK government and tweeted that the decision to sell his stake was “the biggest mistake I ever made,” according to The Times. His Twitter account is now set to private.

SwiftKey, which developed a predictive text keyboard, was founded by ex-Cambridge students Chris Hill-Scott, Jon Reynolds, and Ben Medlock in 2008. According to The Guardian,

Reynolds and Medlock would have made around £25 million (€32 million) from the deal based on their ownership share of the company.

“When SwiftKey formed there were three founding members. Chris was a friend of Jon’s from school and Ben was a friend from his university in Cambridge,” said a SwiftKey spokesperson in a statement to The Times.

“Two months after forming the company, Chris decided to leave … Jon and Ben bought his shares. He left on good terms.”

It is believed the two bought our Hill-Scott with a bike.

PastedImage-67376 Twitter / Chris Hill-Scott Chris Hill-Scott Twitter / Chris Hill-Scott / Chris Hill-Scott

Microsoft bought SwiftKey because the founders developed a way, based on artificial intelligence, to accurately predict the words in upcoming sentences. In the blog post announcing the acquisition, the founders touted the time their app had saved.

Hill-Scott left before Reynolds and Medlock had developed the technology behind the predictive text, according to The Times, choosing to work as a civil servant. His salary is now around £55,000 (€68,000) a year.

The SwiftKey team has been absorbed into Microsoft and Microsoft Research, the 1,000-strong arm of the company dedicated to scientific research, but it’s unclear what they will be working on.

Read: Criminal tries to ram jeep full of armed gardaí he mistook for rival gang

Read: French football hooligans plan to trash rival’s wedding, ruin wrong nuptials by mistake

Published with permission from
Business Insider
Your Voice
Readers Comments
23
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.