SNELLVILLE, Ga. — A Georgia native and billionaire is helping to send off seniors at his former high school in Snellville with a sweet graduation gift.
Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, announced he's gifting each 2022 graduate of Brookwood High School with 22 shares of stock in his company. Right now, Airbnb stock is priced at $110.40 a share, making Gebbia's total gift for 890 grads over a whopping $2.1 million.
The 40-year-old billionaire revealed the surprise during the high school's commencement ceremony on Wednesday.
"I definitely don't remember the advice I was given at my graduation and I don't expect you to either," Gebbia said to the class of 2022.
"I thought of a way to help you remember. I would like to give you a piece of my dream to help inspire yours and let you know that it is possible," he continued. "I'm giving each of you a few of my shares in Airbnb stock."
The crowd cheered vehemently.
"It's more symbolic than anything else. Think of this as a very small seed investment in you and your dreams as you go off into the next chapter of life," he said.
Gebbia said every student will receive the same amount of shares via e-mail within the next few weeks.
Gebbia is a Class of 2000 Brookwood High alumni. According to Forbes, his real-time net worth is valued at an estimated $7.6 billion.
The gift, though, comes with a "small request" from Gebbia.
"When you have a doubt about yourself, your dreams, or whether you're capable of achieving them, tell yourself 'Yes I can,'" he said.
Gebbia encouraged the graduates to take risks when a window of opportunity presents itself — it's a concept he said he realized during his senior year at Brookwood and applied throughout his life.
"So when you see these shares years from now, please go invest them in your dreams," he said. "Don't spend it all on crypto."