Kevin O’Leary Net Worth: How Much Rich Author Kevin O’Leary Is?

Kevin O’Leary Net Worth

O’Leary’s net worth is $400 million. He is a Canadian author, politician, and television personality. Dragons’ Den” and “Shark Tank” are two of his best-known projects, as is SoftKey International, a software firm.

Kevin O’Leary Early Life

On July 9, 1954, Terence Thomas Kevin O’Leary was born in the city of Montreal, Quebec, in the country of Canada. His mother is of Lebanese origin, while his father is of Irish descent. He has an Irish mother and a Lebanese father. Because of his father’s Irish ancestry, O’Leary is also a citizen of Ireland and possesses an Irish passport.

O’Leary’s mother wed Gorge Kanawaty, an economist, following the breakup of her marriage to O’Leary’s father and shortly after the passing of O’Leary’s father. O’Leary spent his childhood travelling the world as a result of his stepfather’s employment with the International Labour Organization of the United Nations.

Some of the countries in which he resided as a child include Cambodia, Tunisia, and Cyprus. His mother was an experienced investor, and she passed on to him a lot of what she had learned over the years, including the important lesson that he should always put aside one-third of his earnings.

O’Leary listened to the guidance of his stepfather and decided to pursue a degree in economics rather than following his original dream of becoming a photographer. It was during his time at school that he began to cultivate his interest in business and the stock market. In 1977, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo, and in 1980, he received his master’s in business administration from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.

Kevin O’Leary Business Career

O’Leary did an internship at Nabisco and worked as an assistant brand manager for the company’s brand of cat food while he was pursuing his Master of Business Administration degree. He attributes his eventual success to the abilities he gained as a result of this encounter, which he says helped him develop those talents.

Following his departure from Nabisco, O’Leary briefly pursued a career in television production, eventually becoming a co-founder of the independent television production firm Special Event Television (SET) together with two former classmates from his MBA programme. In the end, one of O’Leary’s business partners paid $25,000 to purchase the entrepreneur’s portion in the enterprise.

Following the sale of his stake in SET, O’Leary launched the software company SoftKey in the basement of a building in Toronto in the year 1986 together with John Freeman and Gary Babcock as his business partners.

O’Leary established the company, which was a publisher and distributor of CD-ROM-based personal computer software for Windows and Macintosh computers, using his own $25,000 SET share money and a $10,000 investment loan from his mother. This was after a major financial backer withdrew their commitment of $250,000 to the venture.

After purchasing several of its competitors in 1993, including WordStar and Spinnaker Software, the firm created a variety of educational software products and became a prominent consolidator in the market for educational software by the end of that same year.

After completing the purchase of The Learning Company (TLC) for a total of $606 million in 1995, Softkey changed its name to TLC. Mattel paid 4.2 billion dollars in 1999 to acquire the TLC network. O’Leary decided to leave Mattel after the firm saw a decline in both its revenue and its profitability.

Shareholders of Mattel sued executives of Mattel and O’Leary for misleading investors about the health of TLC. O’Leary denied all charges and blamed the failure of the acquisition on a technology meltdown as well as a culture clash between the management of the two companies. Mattel executives were also sued for their roles in the scheme.

O’Leary joined the company Storage Now in 2003 as a co-investor and eventually became a director of the business. They are in the business of developing storage facilities that are temperature and humidity regulated.

Storage Now has risen to the position of the third biggest owner and operator of storage facilities in Canada as a result of a series of development initiatives and acquisitions. Storage Now served big corporations like Merck and Pfizer from facilities situated in eleven different cities around the country. In March of 2007, the firm was purchased for a total of $110 million.

Kevin O’Leary Media And Other Ventures

O’Leary published his debut work, titled “Cold Hard Truth: On Business, Money, and Life,” in the month of September 2011. 2012 and 2013 saw the release of his two further albums. O’Leary made his debut on the small screen in 2006 when he was cast as one of the five venture capitalists on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show “Dragons’ Den.”

It was suggested by the show’s producers that he build an on-screen image as a rude and intimidating investor, and he did just that. In 2009, O’Leary received an invitation to participate on the show “Share Tank,” which is the American equivalent of “Dragons’ Den.” He continued to appear on both series until 2014, when he finally stepped down from “Dragons’ Den.” As a result of his appearances on the two shows, he became known by the nick name “Mr. Wonderful.”

This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to his reputation for being a jerk, but it is also a reference to the fact that his direct feedback is beneficial to the misguided entrepreneurs who appear on the shows.

Something Wonderful is his holding business, and it’s used to manage all of his interests related to the programme. During his time on “Shark Tank,” he made some significant investments, including ones in Talbott Teas (which was subsequently purchased by Jamba Juice) and GrooveBook (later acquired by Shutterfly).

Other television and media endeavours that Kevin O’Leary has been involved in include co-hosting “Discovery Project Earth” on the Discovery Channel in 2008; a segment on the CBC News Network with journalist Amanda Lang titled “The Lang and O’Leary Exchange” in 2009; and producing and hosting his own reality show in 2012 titled “Redemption Inc.” in which he attempted to assist formerly incarcerated individuals in starting their own businesses.

Kevin O’Leary Politics

Following several months of widespread public speculation, O’Leary made his entry into the contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party on January 18, 2017. During the course of his campaign, he was frequently compared by the media to the current President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Both men were successful businessmen who rose to prominence as a result of their participation in reality television and ran on platforms that included the reduction of taxes and regulations. O’Leary has dismissed comparisons, pointing out in particular his differences with Trump on the subject of immigration, pointing out that he himself is descended from Irish and Lebanese immigrants, and “wouldn’t exist if Canada had walls.”

O’Leary has said that he “wouldn’t exist if Canada had walls.” On April 26, 2017, he made the decision to formally withdraw from the race for the leadership of the party. He stated that despite the fact that he was confident he could win the leadership election, it would be “selfish” of him to continue running because his lack of support in Quebec would make it difficult for him to defeat Justin Trudeau in 2019.

Kevin O’Leary Political Life

His wife Linda has been with him since 1990, with a two-year break in 2011. She is O’Leary Wines’ Vice President of Marketing. Two children are in the family of the married couple..

In addition to a cottage in Muskoka, Ontario, and a home in Boston and Geneva in Switzerland, he keeps a permanent residence in Toronto, Canada.