The NBA star was joined onstage with Edsoma CEO Kyle Wallgren, who says the startup’s goal is to teach a million kids to read. O’Neal touched on how he developed his investing strategy after hearing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos say that if you invest in things, you are going to change people’s lives.
touch on : ~에 관해 언급하다.
Wallgren shared that during Edsoma’s first month of launching, the company boarded 300 students. The company has now onboarded 9,000 students, and eventually wants to change a million lives.
O’Neal believes that although he doesn’t have a specific formula when it comes to the VC world, he believes that having a sense of humor and being nice has given him a lot of opportunities. O’Neal, who brought that belief with him on stage as he invited a fan on-stage to sit next to him, said that he doesn’t want to be known for his fame, but for being nice.
“Me being nice, has gotten me a lot of opportunity,” O’Neal said. “I wish it was a formula to how I get all my deal flows, but it’s just me being me and me having a sense of humor being nice and I’ve been very, very lucky. When [Wallgren] was building Edsoma, he told me that he thought of me because he knows the relationship that I have with children.”
O’Neal, who earned his MBA in 2005, says he believes that education is important to him largely because his parents pushed him into education. Reflecting on his journey on getting his Master’s degree, he says he did it for the children who look up to him to help them understand the importance of education.
“I did it for my children, and I did it for the children that follow me just wanted them to know that education is very, very important,” he said. “I’m rich and famous and got a lot of followers but I wanted to show him that there’s more to that.”
O’Neal believes that literacy can drive positive change, not only for children, but also for people who are incarcerated.
incarcerate: 감금하다 imprison
O’Neal said. “So literacy can drive you know, economies that can change everything.”
Wallgren added that when Edsoma came to be, the focus wasn’t on making money, as the team was intent on making a difference when it comes to education, which aligned with O’Neal’s investing strategy.
intent on: 열중하고 있는
“So you need to be able to tell that story and have it really resonate with the people that are investing in it, then we can actually change the way the entire country operates just by teaching kids how to read and [O’Neal] really got that.”
When asked about how he weeds through the hundreds of companies that approach him every week, O’Neal says he goes with his gut feeling, and then passes it over to his panel. He says it’s not quick process, especially because of his strategy to only invest in startups that are going to change lives. Regarding the recent AI boom, O’Neal said if he does invest in an AI startup, it’s going to be on that’s changing lives.
weed through: 잡초 뽑듯이 걸러내다
When asked about how he weeds through the hundreds of companies that approach him every week, O’Neal says he goes with his gut feeling, and then passes it over to his panel. He says it’s not quick process, especially because of his strategy to only invest in startups that are going to change lives. Regarding the recent AI boom, O’Neal said if he does invest in an AI startup, it’s going to be on that’s changing lives.
After his investment in Google went well, he said he might as well try again. O’Neal admits that although he has made a couple of mistakes trying to get rich quick, he now has a strategy that he believes works.
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