Regular readers of this here ShaqFu Radio blog know that our man Shaq has had quite the post-NBA career. Sure, he’s well-known as one of the most dominant players ever to hit the hardwood. After his playing days ended, the big man went on to big business, and he’s never looked back.
In a recent interview, O’Neal talks about one of his earliest investments after leaving basketball. It was this little Silicon Valley startup… you might have heard of it. It was (and is) called Google.
Of course like most “startups,” Google “started up” slowly. Yet it didn’t stay a small company for long. Today the company – under its main corporate name Alphabet – is one of the biggest players in all of the high-tech world. Last year, the company reported revenues of over $279 BILLION dollars. Yup, more than a quarter trillion dollars. Not bad!
As for O’Neal, he made a number of money moves once he retired from the NBA. In his early days, he bought and ran drive-thru car washes. He had (and still has) interests in Krispy Kreme donuts, Papa John’s Pizza and lots, lots more. Nowadays, he’s heavily involved in his own fast-food restaurant chain, Big Chicken.
He also made stock market investments in several companies. One of those was Google. How did it all begin? Well, perhaps it was something that started with Shaq being Shaq. Something he does all the time. Interacting and having fun with fans of all ages.
In an interview with tech-reporting website TechCrunch (and reported by Yahoo News), O’Neal says his involvement with the company was “by accident.” But knowing how Shaq shows up in public, it’s no accident when Shaq is spotted out there in everyday life. That’s kind of how the story goes…
O’Neal told TechCrunch he was enjoying some lunch at a high-end Los Angeles restaurant: “I was at Four Seasons, I was eating lunch and there were four distinguished gentlemen sitting there playing with their kids, and the kids recognize me and they’re playing with me.” No surprise, right?
O’Neal continued: “Basically, I’m doing a babysitting job, and one gentleman says ‘I want to talk about this company called Google,’ and just talking about search engines and ‘you’ll be able to type in anything,’ and I was like, ‘That sounds good.’ We had a meeting with them and it looked good, and I put some money in and I forgot about it.”
Yup, he forgot he owned it! Shaq continues the story by saying it wasn’t until he read a newspaper article later that he realized he’d struck a pot of gold. How much did he invest? Well, the exact amount was never disclosed (good financial privacy), but it’s for sure that O’Neal made a great return.
Shaq says even he was surprised: “The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn’t believe how much I made.” The big man says his only regret was that he didn’t make an even bigger investment in the company. “It was presented to me, I knew it was gonna hit and I said, ‘Wow, I’ll try it.’ My only regret is that I wish I would have bought more,” O’Neal said.