NBA star Andre Iguodala is a three-time NBA champion, who took home the NBA Finals MVP trophy with the Warriors in 2015. He’s also an avid golfer who sports a single-digit handicap, as he told Chris Nashawaty in the pages of GOLF Magazine last year.
In hindsight, though, the most interesting nugget Iguodala dropped in the interview was a small piece of investment advice, one that could have made anyone who listened a whole lot of money by now.
When Nashawaty noted Iguodala’s interest in investing in tech companies and asked for a tip, Iguodala first mentioned safe bets, saying, “If you had to buy a stock today, you gotta go safe: Amazon or Google or Microsoft.”
But it was next company he chose that turned out to be his most prescient piece of advice.
“For someone who doesn’t mind taking a gamble, look at the company Zoom,” Iguodala said. “They do video conferencing.”
A lot has happened for Iguodala since the interview was conducted during the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs. The Warriors lost the championship to the Toronto Raptors, then traded Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies, before he was shipped to the Miami Heat this February.
Even more has happened for Zoom Video Communications, the formal name for the company he suggested investing in.
When the coronavirus pandemic took hold earlier this year, millions of office employees were suddenly forced to work remotely, with even more families and friends needing a way to stay in touch while quarantined, thereby dramatically increasing the demand for video conferencing technology.
Zoom has seen its user base and stock price skyrocket as a result. On April 23, the company announced it had surpassed 300 million daily users, up from just 10 million in December 2019, according to Markets Insider. Its stock (“ZM” on the NASDAQ 100) has increased to $170 as of midday on May 19. That’s an increase of over 150% since the stock began the year under $70.
There’s no way Iguodala or anyone else could have predicted such an incredible rise in value, but it goes without saying that if you had trusted the hoopster’s advice and gone all in on Zoom at the end of last year, you’d have plenty of money to spend on a new set of irons or a golf club membership.
By the way, that single-digit handicap of Iguodala’s got all the way down to 8.1 at one point, though it had risen to 9.2 by the time his GOLF interview happened. Though with the NBA currently suspended just like the PGA Tour, the Miami Heat’s newest member has probably had some time to get his handicap back down again.
You can read Iguodala’s full GOLF Magazine interview here.
