Kevin Durant's hardest three-point play

In choosing Brooklyn, he seeks to redefine all three aspects. Can the superstar come back from a devastating public injury to dominate the league again? Can he win a championship with a team centered on him? (He’s already flexed new muscles there, eschewing the high-profile New York Knicks, a pairing seemingly preordained, for the upstart Nets.) And can he translate his Silicon Valley lessons to the world capital of capital as well as ­of media and fashion. “Walking around New York,” Durant says, “there is so much greatness, hard work and determination.”

Durant’s outside business vehicle: Thirty Five Ventures, co-founded with his manager, Rich Kleiman, a music industry veteran who previously helped start the sports division of Jay-Z’s talent agency, Roc Nation. Thirty Five Ventures has 15 full-time employees running Durant’s endorsements, foundation, and expanding collection of startups and media plays. Over the past few years he’s plowed more than $15 million into 40-plus startups. Nearly 70 percent of the companies have raised subsequent rounds at higher valuations, scoring what Durant claims are paper gains topping 400 percent.

More directly, Thirty Five Ventures has a production arm creating basketball-themed documentaries, series and scripted shows for outlets like Apple, YouTube and ESPN. “LeBron James was the first case study that you can build a real business while you’re playing,” says Kleiman. “Kevin is building a real and authentic company.”

For Durant, a 30 Under 30 alum who recently hit the grand old age of 31, the goal is nothing short of a 10-digit net worth. By the time his playing career is over, he’ll have made well over $500 million from salary and sponsorships. Now, Durant says, “I want to use the checks I get from companies to create true generational wealth.”

Durant was raised by his mother in Prince George’s County, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., in a rough neighbourhood where he was always looking over his shoulder. By middle school, he was 6 feet and mostly looking down. By 17, he was the MVP of McDonald’s High School All-American Game. By 18, College Player of the Year at the University of Texas. By 19, NBA Rookie of the Year. And so on, all the way to league MVP recognition and several runs at the crown with the Thunder and then his 2016 decision to join the team he couldn’t beat—signing a $54 million contract with the Warriors. The move would forever alter his brand and his business.

Durant first took an interest in the money game when he was weighing competing endorsement offers from Nike and Under Armour in 2014: “I learned a lot about the business side through that. It really broke things down for me.” Oklahoma City offered slim options. “There’s oil and real estate,” Durant says, “but that was a real old boys’ club, and it was hard to break into.” With one foot still in the oil patch, Durant and Kleiman waded into the tech world, lobbying to invest in the delivery startup Postmates and the robo-investor Acorns.

In the Bay Area as a Golden State Warrior, though, he had VIP access to the world’s hottest startups. “All the founders and investors come [to Warriors games], and you get to interact with and meet them,” Durant says. “They look like normal people, but they are changing the world so fast and have so much power.”

Durant soon struck up friendships with the likes of Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, and executives from Google and Apple. In the Silicon Valley startup scene, at once square and status-obsessed, Durant money was sexy, attracting press, street cred and customers. Soon came investments in Coinbase, Robinhood, Caffeine TV, Imperfect Food, Lime scooters and more. “He learned about what it takes to start companies and invest in companies,” says Eddy Cue, the head of Apple’s vast internet software and services division, who first met Durant for dinner and ended up talking with him until 3 am. “When you’re winning, everyone’s interested in learning what makes you tick, and Kevin was smart to take full advantage of meeting people.”