According to Yahoo Finance, Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal never anticipated the fortune that would come his way from an accidental Google investment.
The surprising revelation unfolded while O’Neal was flipping through a newspaper.
Little did he know, he had struck gold.
According to TechCrunch, Shaquille O’Neal was first introduced to Google as one of his earliest investment ventures. While dining at the Four Seasons, a high-profile investor noticed him. The investor initiated a conversation about the budding search engine giant.
“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,”
O’Neal recounted.
“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 and34 ‘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.”
Shaquille O’Neal’s Forgotten Investment
O’Neal’s investment remained largely forgotten.
It wasn’t until he stumbled upon a newspaper article illuminating his venture’s profitability.
“The newspaper told me how much I made, and I couldn’t believe how much I made,”
he said, per TechCrunch.
Though it’s unclear how much Shaquille O’Neal invested in Google, he has professed one regret: not investing more.
“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 revealed, according to Insider.
Today, Google is a tech behemoth.
It currently has a market valuation of $1.714 trillion per Companies Market Cap.
Final Thoughts?
Shaquille O’Neal’s accidental investment journey is a testament to the unpredictable nature of financial ventures.
In O’Neal’s case, a casual lunchtime conversation became a lucrative investment.
Shaquille O’Neal invested in Google “by accident” and then learned he hit the jackpot while reading a newspaper. https://t.co/OaJTNi9ZiS
— AfroTech (@AfroTech) September 20, 2023
Thanks to a tip from a seasoned investor and a fortuitous glance at a newspaper.
