Kevin O’Leary on Prioritizing Success over Family: You May Lose Your Wife, and Your Mother May Hate You

Kevin O’Leary’s net worth is $400 Million.

He’s a hard-nosed businessman.

An astute investor.

And a TV personality.

He’s also obsessed with money.

O’Leary’s tongue-in-cheek nickname, “Mr Wonderful”, refers to his reputation for being mean.

I often wonder if it’s who he is or if he’s trying to appeal to the millions of people watching him on the popular U.S. TV show Shark Tank.

He’s known to give honest evaluations to entrepreneurs who pitch to him on Shark Tank, making for compelling viewing because he never holds back.

O’Leary sources his inspiration for investing from his mother, a skilful investor who, throughout her lifetime, kept her investments a secret.

After her death, the O’Leary family realised how good her investing prowess was when they executed her will.

Georgette O’Leary Invested a third of her weekly paycheque in large-cap, dividend-paying stocks achieving substantial profits. Kevin credits his mom’s traits for his success and says his outstanding business and investment lessons were from his mother after she died.

Lovely, I’m a mommies boy too.

We take some exceptional traits from our moms. But I’m going to say it now. Kevin O’Leary’s career is heading towards disaster without him realising it.

It’s almost as if he’s deliberately trying to sabotage his career because things got too easy for him.

You’re allowed to make mistakes. Everyone does, but he often tries to speak against the tide of popular opinion to sound unconventional, even edgy.

It’s like watching a bad car crash in slow motion. You know it’s wrong, but you can’t take your eyes off what’s about to happen.

O’Leary received $15 million to endorse the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. Who could blame the guy for accepting the offer? He was one of many celebrities paid to promote FTX — by his admission, it was a terrible mistake.

In the court of public opinion, people may have considered this scenario forgivable. But, it’s what O’Leary did after that people weren’t ready to take.

In a series of interviews, he spoke as if Sam Bankman-Fried was somehow a victim in all of this and Binance, a competitor exchange, were to blame for the collapse of FTX. The irony is that O’Leary once called crypto “garbage” and is now coming to the defence of possibly one of the most significant Crypto fraudsters.

Kevin O’Leary — Source

“Yes, I recall that conversation calling Crypto garbage right here on this show in 2017.

Sam Bankman-Fried approached me to get an inside seat on what was considered then huge institutional interest in FTX on U.S. equity.

It was unbelievable.

Several people were coming to me and asking how I get a piece of this deal (FTX).

I said I was a paid spokesperson, and not a single dollar I lost was anybody else’s except mine, which is important for me because that’s an issue.

The deal was just under $15 million, including a bunch of agents I had to pay because I needed a release clause to do commercials.

I put about $9.7 million in crypto. It’s all lost because my account got scraped, all of the data and the coins and everything.”

I appreciate O’Leary’s straightforward communication style, and he tends to be transparent in his interviews, refreshing from the mundane finance interviews you usually hear.

He didn’t need to make a rod for his own back, revealing details of his agreement with FTX during a live interview.

But he did.

Where things take a turn is in another interview with Coindesk, where O’Leary refers to Sam Bankman-Fried, someone currently investigated for a $9 Billion Fraud, as “not having a bad bone in his body.”

It’s like watching your favourite sports star clinging onto the twilight years of their career every time they get on the pitch. You’re almost willing them to perform, but deep down, you know.

Kevin O’Leary — Source

“I’m a big boy.

I’ve seen this movie before.

I will say on a personal level, if you talk to 10 people that knew sam, 9 of them would say what a wonderful guy he was, and I’m one of those.

I just think he’s a very interesting individual, and he doesn’t have an evil bone in his body.”

I get it.

O’Leary has been around the mulberry bush when it comes to business. He knows it’s lonely, and when your world is falling apart around you like it is for Sam Bankman-Fried, you need that one friend to back you up.

And whether you or I like or agree with his opinion is irrelevant, he’s entitled to his view, and his stance to a degree is correct. Wait for the facts around Sam Bankman-Fried to come out first before jumping to a conclusion.

Here’s Where He F*cked Up!

Yesterday O’Leary posted a soulless, ton-deaf Tweet.

He suggested that success is more important than anything else, even if it means losing things like your wife, dog, or even your mother being angry with you. Once you succeed, you will be free to do what you want.

O’Leary received significant backlash for his public comments, so he was immediately invited on television and asked if he stood behind his remarks.

He didn’t just stand behind them. He doubled down on them.

Kevin O’Leary — Source

“100% if you’re an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re gonna work 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. They wrote about it when the Beetles first spoke about it.

This is what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. If you can’t do it and that statement makes you uncomfortable, you are not an entrepreneur, don’t even try.

You’re going to sacrifice quality of life with your family in your earlier years, and the reason you do it and what’s inherent in that statement is you’re buying freedom for yourself and your whole family.

That’s the whole idea you sacrifice to gain this back later in life.”