Shaq Refused To Pay $80,000 For Security And Made A Surprising Choice. He Invested In A Company Bezos Later Bought For $1 Billion
Shaquille O’Neal is known for his dominance on the basketball court, but his business moves off the court are just as impressive. One of the most surprising stories about Shaq isn’t about a slam dunk or a championship win — it’s about how he turned a simple home security issue into a multi-million-dollar investment.
Shaq has three homes in Atlanta, where he’s lived for years, and he needed a new security system for one of them. When he contacted a security company, they quoted him $80,000. Even though he’s worth millions, Shaq knew that price was way too high. So, he did what many of us would do and looked for a cheaper solution. While shopping at Best Buy, he spotted some Ring cameras and decided to buy one.
“The crazy thing about it is I hooked it up myself,” Shaq said, clearly proud of his DIY skills. He installed the camera, and then, while traveling in China, he realized just how powerful the system was. He could see and talk to someone at his front door from halfway around the world. That’s when it clicked for Shaq — this wasn’t just a good product but a game-changer.
Excited about what he had discovered, Shaq decided to take things a step further. He tracked down the company’s booth at a tech conference and made a bold offer to the CEO. “I said, ‘Hey, my name is Shaquille O’Neal. I want to invest in your company, and you’re going to pay me to do commercials, and then whatever happens happens,'” Shaq recounted. The CEO agreed, and Shaq became an early investor in Ring.
A few years later, Jeff Bezos bought Ring for $1 billion. Shaq’s decision to invest in this still relatively unknown company saved him money on his home security and made him a lot of money in return. How much exactly? He never disclosed.
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 venture capitalist. During a lunch at the Four 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 meeting 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 companies like Lyft, Apple and Vitaminwater. With Lyft, he jumped in just a year after it was founded, and when the company went public in 2019, it was valued at $22 billion.
