With its recent initial public offering, Twitter minted a brand-new group of billionaires, many of whom were rewarded for their early work with the company.
But one person who brought a sense of levity to the startup during its darkest hours will not be making anything. That person is Yiying Lu, the artist behind Twitter's "Fail Whale" — the image of a whale being carried by birds — that used to pop up every time Twitter's website was down, which was a lot of the time in 2008.
Unlike Facebook's graffiti artist who took shares instead of payment that turned out to be worth more than $200 million, or the masseuse at Google whose stock options made her a multimillionaire, Lu was not richer after Twitter's first day of trading.
"I have no stock," Lu said. "Yet," she added after a pause.
Her story is just one of many from people who contribute to the success of a startup but don't reap a windfall when it goes public.
Lu, who was born in Shanghai, moved to New South Wales, Australia, as a teenager and later studied in London at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. She created the whale as a birthday icon she would send to friends who were scattered around the world. It was meant to depict a whale so full of good wishes that it needed a little help from its bird friends.
In 2008, she posted it to iStockphoto.com, a royalty-free service where photographers and artists can post their work and license it for a small fee.
Biz Stone, one of Twitter's co-founders, went to iStockphoto during Twitter's early days when the site hit a rough patch with regular shutdowns. He was looking for a cheap image that could be used as a symbol when the Twitter site was down temporarily but would return soon. Lu's image struck a chord with him and, as it soon became apparent, with Twitter's followers.