One particular company has significantly contributed to Shaquille O’Neal’s multimillionaire status.
O’Neal, famous for his basketball career with teams such as the LA Lakers, Orlando Magic, and Miami Heat, boasts a net worth of approximately $500 million.
Although a portion of his wealth originated from his athletic career, O’Neal has continued to generate income since retiring in 2011 by smartly investing in various businesses.
O’Neal has diversified his investments across several companies, including Apple, Papa John’s, Krispy Kreme, and Five Guys.
However, it is one of his initial investments that has proven particularly lucrative, stemming from a chance meeting.
O’Neal shared that his motivation to invest came from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“I went to a conference in ‘97 or ‘98 and I heard a beautiful bald-headed man by the name of Jeff Bezos say if you invest in things, it’s going to change people’s lives,” he said, as per TechCrunch.
One of his most successful investments? Google.
Describing how he stumbled upon the then-nascent company, O’Neal recounted: “I was at Four Seasons, I was eating lunch and there were four distinguished gentleman sitting there playing with their kids and the kids recognize me and they’re playing with me.”
“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.'”
Following this interaction, they arranged a meeting, and O’Neal decided to invest.
It wasn’t until Google became a major success that he recalled his investment in the company.
“The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn’t believe how much I made,” he said.
It is believed that O’Neal invested £250,000 in 1999. While the exact return on this investment isn’t specified, The Motley Fool noted that a $10,000 investment in Google in 2004 would have grown to over $300,000 by 2019.
Currently, O’Neal reportedly earns $60 million annually from his business investments and endorsements.
According to talkSPORT, his earnings now surpass those from his peak years in basketball.