Monday, February 8, 2016

SwiftKey’s co-founder sold his shares but missed out on a share of $250 million


Chris Hill-Scott may be the tech world’s unluckiest guy. He was the founder of a cool British start-up used the world over. Unfortunately, he missed out on the “becoming a millionaire” part. The 29-year-old Briton co-founded the predictive keyboard start-up SwiftKey with his friends, Jon Reynolds, 30, and Ben Medlock, 36. Hill-Scott decided to back out of the venture two months in; he reportedly grew tired of the long hours and work required. He sold his stake for a bicycle in 2008.

Within eight years, the company would grow into a massive success, especially when third-party keyboards were allowed on the iPhone in 2014. And this week, the two remaining founders—Reynolds and Medlock—announced that Microsot bought the companyfor a whopping $250 million. They reportedly made more than £25 Million(paywall) each from the sale.

A spokeswoman for SwiftKey said:

Hill-Scott is now a web developer for the British government. He described the decision to leave as “the biggest mistake I ever made” on Twitter—before changing his privacy settings.

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