It wasn’t until reading a newspaper that Shaquille O’Neal realized he struck a pot of gold.
According to TechCrunch, Google was one of O’Neal’s earliest investments.
His investment in the search engine was “by accident,” per a report by Insider. O’Neal was dining at the Four Seasons when he caught the attention of a high-profile investor, who began speaking to him about Google.
That conversation would then elevate to a formal meeting, which convinced O’Neal to invest his dollars in the company.
“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 said, according to TechCrunch. “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.”
Although the exact amount O’Neal invested in the company was not disclosed, he made a great return. What’s more, he found out only after reading about it in a newspaper.
“The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn’t believe how much I made,” he said, per TechCrunch.
O’Neal’s only regret is that he hadn’t invested more in Google. Today, the tech giant is valued at $1.714 trillion, according to Companies Market Cap.
“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, per Insider.
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