Chris Bosh, oft-derided for "riding the coattails" of Lebron and Dwyane Wade* funded a number of coding schools and studied CS at Georgia Tech. His parents had him coding at an early age as well.
(*Chris Bosh is a Hall of Fame player and maybe the most underrated big man of the last decade. Happy to debate. LOL)
Kevin Durant spent his time in the Bay Area investing in startups and learning how the tech world worked in SV.
More and more athletes are thinking of life-after-the-sport, but just as many are also seeing themselves as businessmen DURING their careers. The biggest names want to build iconic brands, and not just brands that focus on their personal identities. Podcasts, streaming services, energy drinks, athletic gear, music, film production, technology. Young smart men (mostly) flush with cash who have been coached on the cautionary tales of the late 90's and'00s where players received mega-contracts and were broke within 5 years (see: Vince Young, Antoine Walker, Andre Rison)
One last story: I used to work in the hosting/infrastructure world and an early colleague was a very early employee at RAX. Once told me a story that Gregg Popovich (coach) and David Robinson (HOF player) of the San Antonio Spurs each put $1M into RAX when they were still doing seed investments from friends, family and connections. He told me that if both men liquidated their shares at IPO, even with the 20% dip that happened quite quickly, their individual take would have each been more than Robinson made as an NBA player in his entire career ($112M).
(*Chris Bosh is a Hall of Fame player and maybe the most underrated big man of the last decade. Happy to debate. LOL)
Kevin Durant spent his time in the Bay Area investing in startups and learning how the tech world worked in SV.
More and more athletes are thinking of life-after-the-sport, but just as many are also seeing themselves as businessmen DURING their careers. The biggest names want to build iconic brands, and not just brands that focus on their personal identities. Podcasts, streaming services, energy drinks, athletic gear, music, film production, technology. Young smart men (mostly) flush with cash who have been coached on the cautionary tales of the late 90's and'00s where players received mega-contracts and were broke within 5 years (see: Vince Young, Antoine Walker, Andre Rison)
One last story: I used to work in the hosting/infrastructure world and an early colleague was a very early employee at RAX. Once told me a story that Gregg Popovich (coach) and David Robinson (HOF player) of the San Antonio Spurs each put $1M into RAX when they were still doing seed investments from friends, family and connections. He told me that if both men liquidated their shares at IPO, even with the 20% dip that happened quite quickly, their individual take would have each been more than Robinson made as an NBA player in his entire career ($112M).