Kevin O’Leary’s Path to Success

His net worth, his career, and key takeaways from his success.

Wealthendipity
Wealth 101
4 min readJan 23, 2023

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Photo: Randstad Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In this article we’ll talk about Kevin O’Leary net worth, how he built his fortune, and key lessons from his career and path to success.

Who Is Kevin O’Leary

Terence Thomas Kevin O’Leary is a Canadian television personality, businessman and entrepreneur. He was born in Montreal, Quebec on July 9, 1954.

O’Leary was raised in the Quebec town of Mount Royal. His father’s alcoholism was a major factor in his parents’ divorce when he was a little child. O’Leary was just seven years old when his father passed away.

His mother served as the executive director of the family company after his father’s passing. Later, his mother married George Kanawaty, an economist who worked for the UN’s International Labour Organization.

O’Leary’s family constantly relocated abroad due to his stepfather’s work; during his formative years, he resided in places like Cambodia, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and Cyprus.

O’Leary initially wanted to be a photographer, but then he decided to go to college on the suggestion of his stepfather. During those years, his interest in business and entrepreneurship kept growing.

In 1977, he graduated with honors from the University of Waterloo with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and environmental studies.

Kevin O’Leary Net Worth

Kevin O’Leary net worth is $400 Million.

He amassed this fortune by working as a businessman, television personality and entrepreneur.

Kevin did an internship in NABISCO and afterwards started a short-lived career as a television producer, co-founding Special Event Television (SET) with two of his former MBA classmates.

Eventually, O’Leary’s portion in the business was purchased for $25,000 by one of his partners.

In 1986, O’Leary founded the software company SoftKey in a Toronto basement with partners John Freeman and Gary Babcock after selling his stake of SET.

O’Leary founded the company, which was a publisher and distributor of CD-ROM-based personal computer software for Windows and Macintosh computers, using his $25,000 SET share money and a $10,000 investment loan from his mother.

O’Leary joined the board of directors and became a co-investor in Storage Now in 2003. They create storage facilities with climate control. Storage Now has grown to be the third-largest owner/operator of storage services in Canada through a series of development initiatives and acquisitions.

Storage Now had facilities in eleven cities that served well-known corporations like Merck and Pfizer. In March 2007, the business was purchased for $110 million.

In 2011, O’Leary published the book, “Cold Hard Truth: On Business, Money & Life”. The book has a rating of 3,78 on Goodreads.

During the following years, he released several follow-up books.

In 2006, O’Leary made his debut on television as one of the five venture capitalists on the CBC program “Dragons’ Den.”

The show’s creators wanted him to adopt an aggressive, harsh investor attitude on-screen.

O’Leary received an invitation to join “Shark Tank,” the American equivalent of “Dragons’ Den,” in 2009. He continued to appear on both programs until he left “Dragons’ Den” in 2014.

Although he owns properties in Boston and Geneva, Switzerland, as well as a cottage in Muskoka, Ontario, his principal residence is in Toronto.

Kevin O’Leary on Social Media

On Instagram, Kevin has 983K followers and he usually posts pictures of himself with motivational quotes in them.

On Twitter, Kevin has 981.5K Followers and he usually posts videos of himself giving lectures and appearing on different news channels and podcasts.

Kevin O’Leary Quotes

  • “Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we’re going to win.”
  • “Working 24 hours a day isn’t enough anymore. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to be successful, including your personal life, your family life, maybe more. If people think it’s any less, they’re wrong, and they will fail.”
  • “I have met many entrepreneurs who have the passion and even the work ethic to succeed — but who are so obsessed with an idea that they don’t see its obvious flaws. Think about that. If you can’t even acknowledge your failures, how can you cut the rope and move on?”

Source: Brainy Quote

Key Takeaways from Kevin O’Leary Career

Create an online presence

Kevin, being a businessman also appeared in several tv shows, and maintained himself active creating an online presence.

This shows us that we must make the most that we can by creating an online presence in order to maintain ourselves up to date and relevant.

Recommended read: How to Become a Millionaire in 5 Years or Less

Be an example for others

Kevin is a successful businessman and has worked hard and invested intelligently in order to achieve the wealth that he has amassed.

We have to take this man as an example on how we need to manage ourselves in terms of discipline, hard work and motivation in order to achieve our own goals.

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Wealthendipity
Wealth 101

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