Biography & Early Wealth Journey
"So Howard comes and says, 'Shaq, I wanna give you the opportunity to go in with me and open up these Starbucks franchises in African American communities.' And I'm always the guy that, if I don't believe in it, I can't do it. Will never do it. No amount of money can make me endorse something that I'm not 100 percent behind. So I looked in the great Howard Schultz's face and said, 'Black people don't drink coffee, sir. I don't think it's gonna work.' You should have seen his face. He was like… alright. We're still good friends today, but that was one of my worst business decisions."
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Shaq isn't just exaggerating for humorous effect when he calls the business decision one of his worst. After Shaq turned Starbucks down, they ended up approaching his fellow NBA legend Magic Johnson with a similar offer, which ended up making him about $27 million when he sold his shares of the company in 2010. Before you start feeling too bad for Shaq, though, remember that the occasional bad business decision (or movie career) aside, he's done more than OK for himself, with a personal net worth of about $350 million. Still, for somebody as competitive as Shaq, you have to figure it burned to have seen Magic Johnson get richer off of a deal he turned down – he seems to be in good spirits about it now, though 🙂