How Kevin Durant became Silicon Valley's hottest startup

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SAN FRANCISCO — Until last summer, Kevin Durant was certainly famous, but maybe not famous enough. Here was a perennial N.B.A. All-Star and former most valuable player who had been ranked No. 4 on GQ’s list of the most stylish players in N.B.A. history. He had a reported $300 million endorsement deal with Nike, and Lifetime had even made a movie about his mother, “The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story.”

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Eight months after the decision that rocked the sporting world, Mr. Durant, 28, a starter in Sunday’s N.B.A. All-Star Game, is easing into a new life as a new face of the Warriors, a brash brand of disrupters armed with Google-scale ambition that has been called “tech's team.” He drives a Tesla, pals around with the Silicon Valley’s A-list and is laying the foundation for a tech empire of his own.

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Then the talk took a more serious turn. Asked if he is plugging himself into the Bay Area tech scene, Mr. Durant responded that he is eagerly following the lead of a Warriors teammate, Andre Iguodala, who is a noted investor in companies like Twitter, Facebook and Tesla. Last summer, in fact, Mr. Durant and Mr. Kleiman unveiled a start-up of their own, the Durant Company, with a swelling portfolio of investments in tech companies like Postmates and Acorns, in addition to hotels and restaurants and film and television development. They are also investing with Ronald Conway, one of Silicon Valley’s “super angel” investors and a front-row fixture at Oracle Arena (the Warriors’ current home in Oakland), and consulting with Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, on his own charity foundation. In a sense, Mr. Durant is not wholly unlike the legions of ambitious 20-somethings in hoodies and cool sneakers who descend on Silicon Valley to make hundreds of millions.

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In September, he celebrated his birthday at a lavish barbecue at the house of Ben Horowitz, the influential venture capitalist and business partner of Marc Andreessen. Two months later, he watched the election results at the home of Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president for internet software and services, along with Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, and Pharrell Williams. “I think that’s why a lot of athletes and entertainers work well with some of those guys, because for one, they all had humble beginnings,” Mr. Durant said. “They built something from the ground up, so they can relate to us.”

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