Shaquille O’Neal is thought for his dominance on the basketball court, but his business moves off the court are only as impressive. One of the crucial surprising stories about Shaq is not a few slam dunk or a championship win — it’s about how he turned a straightforward home security issue right into a multi-million-dollar investment.
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Shaq has three homes in Atlanta, where he’s lived for years, and he needed a recent security system for one in every of them. When he contacted a security company, they quoted him $80,000. Though he’s value hundreds of thousands, Shaq knew that price was way too high. So, he did what a lot of us would do and searched for a less expensive solution. While shopping at Best Buy, he spotted some Ring cameras and decided to purchase one.
“The crazy thing about it’s I hooked it up myself,” Shaq said, clearly happy with his DIY skills. He installed the camera, after which, while traveling in China, he realized just how powerful the system was. He could see and refer to someone at his front door from halfway around the globe. That is when it clicked for Shaq — this wasn’t just an excellent product but a game-changer.
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Enthusiastic about what he had discovered, Shaq decided to take things a step further. He tracked down the corporate’s booth at a tech conference and made a daring offer to the CEO. “I said, ‘Hey, my name is Shaquille O’Neal. I need to take a position in your organization, and you are going to pay me to do commercials, after which whatever happens happens,'” Shaq recounted. The CEO agreed, and Shaq became an early investor in Ring.
A number of years later, Jeff Bezos bought Ring for $1 billion. Shaq’s decision to take a position on this still relatively unknown company saved him money on his home security and made him plenty of money in return. How much exactly? He never disclosed.
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But this wasn’t Shaq’s first smart investment. In 1999, while still in his NBA prime, Shaq’s agent introduced him to Ron Conway, a top enterprise capitalist. During a lunch on the 4 Seasons, Conway pitched him on investing in a little-known company called Google. Shaq invested $250,000, which grew significantly as Google became a tech giant.
He said, “We had a gathering with them and it looked good, and I put some money in and forgot about it.”
Shaq’s portfolio doesn’t stop there. He’s also invested in corporations like Lyft, Apple and Vitaminwater. With Lyft, he jumped in only a 12 months after it was founded, and when the corporate went public in 2019, it was valued at $22 billion.
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This text Shaq Refused To Pay $80,000 For Security And Made A Surprising Alternative. He Invested In A Company Bezos Later Bought For $1 Billion originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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