Nick Woodman (Photo : Reuters)
His high definition GoPro personal cameras are now the rage and avid surfer Nicholas "Nick" Woodman, who founded GoPro, Inc. in 2002, is now the highest paid Chief Executive Officer in the United States.
Woodman, 39 and a Californian, went to the top on Bloomberg's Pay Index, a ranking of the 100 highest-paid executives based on compensation, when he received 4.5 million restricted stock units valued at $284.5 million at the end of 2014. He was named the highest paid CEO in the United States after GoPro went public in 2014.
Bloomberg's index ranking values an executive's awarded pay package at the company's fiscal year-end closing price.
Woodman had a net worth of $2.4 billion as of April 20, 2015, according to Forbes, and is ranked number 782 in the worldwide list of billionaires. He ranks 276th among the richest Americans.
In December 2012, Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn bought 8.88 percent of GoPro for $200 million, which set the market value of the company at $2.25 billion, making Woodman a billionaire.
Woodman, the son of an investment banker, owns more than 40 percent of GoPro's shares. He founded GoPro in 2002 after building the first prototype with his mom's sewing machine and a drill. Woodman released his first video camera, a 35 millimeter waterproof film version, in 2004.
Users can strap their GoPros on bike helmets, surfboards and scuba gear, among others.
Woodman got the inspiration for GoPro in 2004 after strapping a high-definition camera to his hand on a surfing trip.
The second highest paid CEO is Cheniere Energy Inc's. Charif Souki, who was awarded compensation valued at $281 million at the end of 2013, according to Bloomberg.
The Bloomberg index tracks the 100 highest-paid executives that appear in regulatory filings for companies that trade on U.S. exchanges. Each executive's pay package is updated every business day as fluctuations in company stock prices change the value of their equity awards.
Awarded pay can differ from what's reported in a company's summary compensation table, however.
