With a reported net worth of $500 million, one could argue Magic Johnson doesn’t have any regrets when it comes business deals.
However, during a recent appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Magic admitted to a huge mistake he made back in ’79 when he came out of college. Something that still haunts him to this day.
“When I first came out of college, all the shoe companies came after me,” he said. “And there was this guy, Phil Knight, who just started had Nike.”
“All the other companies offered me money, but they (Nike) couldn’t offer me money because they just started,” Magic said. “So he said something [about] stocks—’I’m gonna give you a lot of stocks.’ I didn’t know nothing about stocks. I’m from the inner city, we don’t know about stocks, you know, at the time.”
“Boy, did I make a mistake,” Johnson admits. “I’m still kicking myself. Every time I’m in a Nike store, I get mad. I could’ve been making money off of everybody buying Nikes right now.”
It’s safe to say the decision in 1979 cost him a few billion $. Man, if you could only be a time traveler.
