swiftkeyThe road to success and riches can be long for a startup founder, but buying a bicycle may not make it any easier.

One of the original founders of SwiftKey, Chris Hill-Scott, decided he wasn’t cut out for startup life. Just two months after founding the company, he sold his shares to his fellow co-founders, Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock.

He used the money to get a bicycle. They just sold SwiftKey to Microsoft for a reported $250 million.

In a tweet spotted by The Times from Hill-Scott’s account (set to private), he said selling his stake was “the biggest mistake I ever made.” Reynolds and Medlock reportedly made $36 million in the deal with Microsoft. Even before that, SwiftKey was one of the leading third-party keyboards.

According to a statement from SwiftKey provided to The Times, Hill-Scott left the company on good terms. He is now a developer for the UK government. SwiftKey is being absorbed by Microsoft Research, as the company continues to make inroads on iOS and Android phones, in addition to its continued machine-learning advances.

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