“He was bringing the same obsessive work ethic to learning about start-ups that he does to training.”
Kobe Bryant’ssneakers have barely dried from his final game in the N.B.A. earlier this month, and he’s already well on his way to his second act. The Lakers legend, who went pro straight out of high school and retired in April after dominating the league for 20 years, has his sights set on conquering Silicon Valley
All this is according to billionaire investor andShark TankpersonalityChris Sacca, who shared a story onBill Simmons’spodcastabout advising Bryant on how to get into tech. Sacca, who had to study Bryant’s Wikipedia page to quickly learn more about him on the way to their first meeting at a bar in Laguna Beach, told him to study up, read some articles, watch some TED videos, and if he proved he was serious, he would talk to him about investing. He never could have anticipated the deluge that came next.
“For the next few months, my phone never stopped buzzing in the middle of the night. It is Kobe, reading this article, checking out this tweet, following this guy, diving into this TED talk, diving into the Y Combinator Demo Days,” Sacca said. “I was getting these at literally two or three in the morning. My wife is like, ‘Are you having an affair with Kobe Bryant?’”
He was not, but he saw how serious Bryant was, so he brought him to Silicon Valley, where they went to Twitter H.Q. (“all of the management team fell all over themselves”) and a few smaller companies. Sacca said Bryant was “enthralled” by it and has gone on to make some investments.
“He was bringing the same obsessive work ethic to learning about start-ups that he does to training. . . . This is a very unique personality type that I only see in some of our very best entrepreneurs,” he said, comparing Bryant’s drive to that of Uber founderTravis Kalanick.“I don’t think [Bryant’s] a pretender about that stuff . . . I think he can be great at this.”
Bryant has all the makings of a Silicon Valley superstar—millions of dollars in the bank, no college degree, the unrelenting drive to succeed and beat out competition, and an irrepressible fondness for warm-up gear. If he can pull off the transition, not only will it prove that jocks and tech nerdscanget along after all, but they can also live within one person. Money is truly the great equalizer.
