During his 19-year career, Shaquille O’Neal earned approximately $292 million from contracts alone. Although it is more than enough money to live comfortably, it did not stop there; The NBA legend was interested in the business world from the beginning and strategically used his money to ensure his future after his retirement.
Since then, he has become one of the top athlete investors in the world, and one of his many ventures was an investment in Google during its early years of development in 1999.
Years later, he humorously admitted that he had completely forgotten about his $250,000 investment, until he was reminded when Google’s value skyrocketed.
“The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn’t believe how much I made.“O’Neal said.
At the time, O’Neal wasn’t yet fully invested in building his wealth through out-of-court ventures, and the story of how he discovered Google reflects that perfectly.
“I was at the Four Seasons, I was having lunch, and there were four distinguished gentlemen sitting there playing with their kids, and the kids recognized me and were playing with me. Basically, I’m doing a babysitting job and a gentleman says, ‘I want to talk about this company called Google,’ and he was talking about search engines, saying, ‘You’ll be able to type anything,’ and I said, ‘That sounds good.’.‘We had a meeting with them and it looked good and I put some money in and forgot about it.,” said.
O’Neal finally met with the guys and decided to invest his money in the company. After the newspaper reminded him of Google’s exponential growth and success, which he had taken advantage of, the legendary great man immediately began to regret not investing more money.
Based on the reported figure of $250,000 that the 1999-00 MVP invested in one of the largest companies in history, the figure is said to have skyrocketed to a whopping $16.5 million, but this was never confirmed.
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Shaq should be an inspiration to all potential investors, not just an athlete looking to start a business. The reason behind this is his extensive portfolio of various investments, including numerous restaurant and fast food chains, such as Krispy Kreme, Papa John’s, Auntie Anne’s, and at one point, 155 Five Guys locations, which he sold in 2016. He also co-founded the Big Chicken chain.
In addition to Google, O’Neal invested in other technology companies, such as Ring, before being acquired by Amazon. He also invested in another technology giant, Apple.