Ryan Reynolds is well known as the star of Deadpool and Free Guy, but he has quietly become a very successful investor—thanks partly to his successful work with Mint Mobile.
Key Details
- Reynolds’s most notable investment has been Mint Mobile, a budget mobile virtual network operator in which Reynolds purchased a greater than 20% stake in 2019, becoming the public face of the company and a member of the board of directors.
- On Wednesday, T-Mobile announced an agreement to purchase Mint Mobile for $1.35 billion, becoming brand owners of the company and promising to continue growing the successful company further under its leadership.
- The company will continue to operate as a distinct entity from T-Mobile, offering budget cellphone service and retaining Reynolds in a creative role.
Why It’s Important
Mint Mobile is just the most notable of Ryan Reynold’s successes as an investor and business leader. In the past five years, he has used his fame and personal brand to successfully distinguish himself as a savvy investor.
Since 2018, the acclaimed comedic actor has adroitly navigated the financial world through a series of lucrative investment deals, building an estimated net worth of $71.5 million, Forbes calculates.
He is a spokesman for 1Password, a board member for Match Group—which owns Tinder and Hinge—purchased a large share of Aviation American Gin, and co-founded a marketing agency called Maximum Effort. He also co-purchased the Welsh soccer franchise Wrexham in February 2021 and nearly purchased the Ottawa Senators NHL franchise.
Key Takeaways
Speaking at Indeed FutureWorks 2022 conference last year, Reynolds revealed that the secret to his success is conflict resolution. Becoming an effective communicator has changed his ability to interact with others, helping him understand them better, build strong relationships, and empathize with others.
“We live in a world that’s increasingly gamified, and I think we have an instinct to win, crush, and kill. But if you can disengage or disarm that instinct for a second and replace it with seeking to learn about somebody instead, that, as a leadership quality, for me, has quite literally changed every aspect of my life,” Reynolds says.
Notable Quote
“Whether you’re talking about the unexpected nature of sports, low-cost wireless, gin, connected TV marketing, ad tech, those kinds of things, the connective tissue between each one of those things is actually, ironically, storytelling, the same way it is with movies. That’s the thing I love about these businesses and their variety of them,” says Reynolds.