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Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary is going all-in on the UAE. The outspoken investor has partnered with One Development as a brand ambassador, drawn by the company’s ambitious vision to fuse AI and real estate. “I’m not just endorsing it — I’ll be living in it,” says O’Leary, who plans to move into the Laguna Residences as part of his growing stake in the region’s future.

We caught up with him at One Development’s new office on Saadiyat Island during his recent visit to Abu Dhabi to mark the announcement of the partnership.

In our conversation, O’Leary opened up about why he’s betting big on the UAE, what makes One Development’s real estate model stand out, and the hard truths he shares with every entrepreneur — from Shark Tank pitches to boardroom battles.

You clearly love this region. What keeps bringing you back?

I have residency here. The real estate is phenomenal, the tech is cutting-edge, and the food — especially the Lebanese cuisine — is amazing. It’s an exciting time to be here, and there’s always something new to discover.

Let’s discuss your partnership with One Development as a brand ambassador. What drew you to this collaboration?

Real estate has always been the largest sector in my portfolio — about a third, which breaks my own investing rule. I’ve invested in commercial, residential, and even data centres, but I had never seen the vision that Ali [Al Gebely, founder and chairman of ONE Development] has.

Ali’s idea of fully integrating AI and technology into real estate isn’t just a gimmick. Most smart homes still require five or six apps to function properly — security, cameras, appliances, and so on. One Development offers a single integrated platform to control your entire environment from your phone. That’s genius. I’m very selective with brand ambassadorships, and I only represent products or services I actually use. In this case, I’m going to live there. The technology is the top selling feature, and I’m excited to be part of it.

How do you see yourself contributing to One Development’s broader expansion, especially with your business-building expertise?

What I like about One Development is the diversification. For instance, the DO Hotel is a very different project from Laguna Residences. You want both sectoral and geographical diversification in real estate. The company’s Cairo project really clinched it for me. I have a personal connection — my stepfather is Egyptian and Swiss. I’ve been to Alexandria and Cairo many times and love the place. What Ali is envisioning there is incredible. With investor interest in the region and the kind of returns you can get here, it’s a compelling opportunity.

Read: Amr Diab, ONE Development launch AI-powered DO Hotels & Residences

Speaking of the region, why the UAE? What makes it attractive for investors like yourself?

Policy is everything. You need to be able to get permits, have competitive tax rates, stability, and access to growth. The UAE offers all of that. It’s also become the capital of capital for this region. You can base yourself here and invest across other countries easily. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are safe, accessible, and strategically located. I always tell people — if you want to understand this place, spend a couple of weeks here. You’ll see why it’s exciting for investors.

With today’s global economic uncertainty, what advice would you give investors? What sectors look promising to you right now?

Geographic diversification is critical. If you had only North American assets right now, you’re facing maximum volatility. I’m glad I’ve allocated around 15 per cent to this region — returns have been significant in just the past year.

Real estate particularly in the UAE is much more stable. A lot of my peers from cities like Boston, New York, Toronto, and Zurich are also here. Everyone’s figured it out.

The UAE is pushing SMEs and entrepreneurship. What advice do you have for startups looking for funding?

Ninety percent of my successful venture returns have come from companies led by women. Women are great at mitigating risk and executing. For any entrepreneur, three things matter: First, pitch your idea in 90 seconds or less. Second, prove that you can execute it — ideas are cheap, execution is rare.

Third, know your numbers — market size, growth, break-even point, competitors. That’s how you attract capital.

You’ve mentioned AI is big in the UAE. How does AI fit into your investment strategy?

Huge focus. Most of my AI investments are in vertical applications across our businesses. AI powers content creation — essential for customer acquisition. Now, we can produce compelling, multilingual content with high-quality visuals at a fraction of the cost. AI is a game changer in productivity — even in creative sectors.

What’s a key life or business lesson that you always share?

When I graduated from business school, a guest speaker told us one-third would fail, one-third would live a mediocre life in consulting, and only 10 per cent of the entrepreneurial third would succeed. I thought he was harsh — but he was right. That insight came from experience. Also, listen to your intuition when investing. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t ignore it.

Who are some people who have influenced or inspired you?

Steve Jobs. I worked with him when we developed educational software for Apple. He taught me the importance of the “signal versus the noise”.

Focus on what needs to get done today — the “signal”. Everything else is noise. I live by that 80/20 ratio.

Elon Musk is the only guy I’ve seen who’s probably 100 per cent “signal”. He’s something else.

I’ve noticed you wear two watches. What’s the story there?

I’m a serious watch collector. One is set to Abu Dhabi time, the other to New York time. These two watches — a Rolex Rainbow with a rare red band and a Vélos — are part of my prized collection. When I come to the UAE, I like to wear colourful pieces.

You mentioned longevity. So how does Mr Wonderful prioritise health with such a busy schedule?

I invest a lot in myself. The best longevity clinics are here in the UAE. Every time I visit, I do EBOO therapy (extracorporeal blood oxygenation and ozonation) —cleansing and ozonating my blood—then inject 50 billion exosomes to reduce inflammation. It keeps me feeling like I’m 30, even though I’m 70.

The UAE has prioritised healthcare innovation for decades, which is why the best tools and doctors are here.

When you have a rough day, what helps you reset?

Exercise. I bike 12 miles to clear my head. And I’ve learned not to let ups and downs affect me too much. Every day brings setbacks and wins. If something bad happens, I just wait a few hours — something good usually follows.

If making your first million dollars feels like an uphill battle, you’re not imagining it. According to entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary, that first big financial milestone is the hardest to reach. But once you get there? Surprisingly, the next few million come much faster.

“It’s almost impossible to make your first million dollars. You work your a off. It’s so hard,” O’Leary said in a 2023 YouTube video. “What it really takes is having the discipline to not buy sh*t you don’t need.”

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O’Leary—who built his fortune after selling his software company for $4.2 billion—knows a thing or two about wealth-building. And he’s blunt about the biggest roadblock to hitting that first million: people spend too much money on things that don’t matter.

He constantly preaches the dangers of unnecessary spending, whether it’s a $5.50 coffee or a $15 work lunch when you could bring a sandwich from home for less than a buck. To O’Leary, financial success isn’t just about making money—it’s about keeping it.

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Why Getting to $5 Million Is Easier Than Hitting $1 Million

After finally crossing that million-dollar mark, O’Leary set his next goal at $5 million. At first, he thought it would be just as brutal. But to his surprise, it wasn’t.

“It’s gonna be impossible,” he recalled thinking. “But it wasn’t as hard to get to $5 million as it was to get to $1 million.”

Trending: Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte’s fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – with $1,000 you can invest at just $0.26/share!

The reason? Money makes money. Once you’ve got a solid amount saved and invested, you’re no longer relying just on your job or business. Compound interest, smart investing, and higher-return opportunities start working in your favor.

O’Leary isn’t the only wealthy investor to say this. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, famously said the first $100,000 was the hardest to reach. After that, investments start snowballing.

How Fast Can You Really Get to $5 Million?

Invest $1 million at an 8% return, and you’ll earn $80,000 per year—without lifting a finger.

At $2 million, that return jumps to $160,000 per year.

At $5 million, it’s $400,000 annually.

That’s why the first million is the hardest. You’re earning from a job or business, making every dollar saved feel like a grind. But once you cross that threshold, your money starts doing the work for you.

See Also: Here’s how much you should have invested in Nvidia in 2022 to become a millionaire today.

But Is It Really That Fast?

O’Leary makes it sound easy, but the timeline depends on how much you invest along the way:

No extra contributions = $1 million grows to $5 million in about 21 years.

Adding $10,000 per year shaves it down to 20 years.

Investing $25,000 per year speeds it up to 18 years.

Yes, money makes money—but this isn’t an overnight success story. If you want to reach $5 million faster, you need to do more than let the market do the work.

So, Is $5 Million Easier Than the First Million?

O’Leary says yes—but only if you’re making smart financial moves. If you sit back and rely solely on market growth, you might be waiting two decades to see that kind of wealth.

If you’re serious about building wealth, the takeaway is clear: your first million is the hardest, but after that, momentum takes over—if you play it right.

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“I believe in economics driving everything at the end of the day, and I don’t think the Trump administration is stupid,” Kevin O’Leary said on Monday.

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“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said on Monday that he believes the Trump administration will eventually remove the sweeping tariffs it announced on over 180 countries last week.

“I believe in economics driving everything at the end of the day, and I don’t think the Trump administration is stupid,” O’Leary said in an interview with Fox Business on Monday.

“They know they’ve gotta start negotiating deals and show the world what the outcome of this is gonna be,” O’Leary added.

Related video Trump unveils reciprocal tariffs at ‘Liberation Day’ White House event

President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on 185 countries on Wednesday, or what he called “Liberation Day.” The tariffs, which start at a baseline rate of 10%, affect the US’s rivals and major allies in Europe and Asia.

Trump’s tariffs have sparked panic among investors and triggered a huge sell-off in the stock market. The S&P 500 is down by nearly 14% year to date, while the Nasdaq Composite is down 19% year to date.

O’Leary, however, believes that countries will soon come forward to negotiate with the US.

“You have got two pieces to this negotiation. One, is remove all tariffs. I’m 100% for that. But I don’t care; pick your Vietnam, Israel, India, Euro, Canadians. Whatever you want. Everybody’s willing to cut a deal to zero tariffs both ways as part of a package,” O’Leary said.

The second piece to the negotiation is the “trade deficit punitive aspect,” O’Leary told Fox Business.

O’Leary cited his greeting card company, Lovepop, which makes its cards in Vietnam.

“Lovepop greeting cards are made in Vietnam and they are shipped every day from there, and it’s all American equipment invested there. Our money, American money invested there,” O’Leary said. “So we are gonna have to work that out, and the government there wants to work it out.”

O’Leary has previously said that Trump’s tariffs should be viewed as part of a larger negotiating strategy.

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Last month, O’Leary told Yahoo Finance that people should think of tariffs as “negotiating tools of economic warfare.”

“I’m in the camp that says Trump doesn’t want to trash the market indefinitely. What he wants to do is use his first 24 months, his majority mandate before the midterms, to drive home a flat reciprocal environment for trade worldwide,” O’Leary told Yahoo Finance.

“And then he comes into the midterms with that achieved, because you can achieve that in two years, and that supports his party maintaining a slight majority, which I think is a good strategy,” O’Leary continued.

Trump’s reciprocal tariffs will take effect on April 9. The European Union was hit with a 20% tariff, India with a 26% tariff, and China with a 34% tariff. China’s total tariff is now 54%, accounting for the 20% tariff Trump imposed on China last month.

Some countries, such as Japan and Vietnam, have since contacted the Trump administration to negotiate. China, on the other hand, said it would “fight to the end” after Trump threatened to raise tariffs by 50%.

Business leaders, from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman to JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon, have criticized Trump’s tariffs.

“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” Dimon wrote in a letter to JPMorgan’s shareholders released Monday.

Representatives for O’Leary and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

The prospect of being your own boss is a dream for Gen Z—inspiring many to launch their own businesses or take up blue-collar gig work. But millionaire Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary thinks most people will never cut it in entrepreneurship—and because of that, they’ll never be truly liberated from their corporate overlords.

“In life, only a third of people can become successful entrepreneurs. That’s it,” O’Leary said recently on the Diary of a CEO podcast. “And the rest can be very successful employees. And there’s nothing wrong with that—you can have a fantastic life.”

“You won’t be shackled to the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the challenge of it, how hard it is. But you’ll never be free. And that’s the debate: Do you want personal freedom? It’s the only path.”

The 70-year-old software mogul knows a thing or two about building billion-dollar businesses. Founding SoftKey Software Products in the basement of his Toronto pad in 1983, O’Leary led the company to become a global education giant, aggressively acquiring competitors and working for technology greats like Steve Jobs. By 1999, he sold the company to Mattel for $3.7 billion; and is now known for being a no-nonsense investor on hit TV series Shark Tank.

The pursuit of entrepreneurship isn’t for money—it’s for freedom

Despite his nationwide fame as “Mr. Wonderful,” O’Leary doesn’t think everyone can replicate his success—nor do they want to.

Even now, as he’s teaching students at Harvard University, he said he witnesses a divide between the premier business students who want to become successful entrepreneurs, and those who will wind up as a cog working for massive corporations.

“Two-thirds of [my students] want to become consultants…and lead a life of mediocrity, and never make a decision of consequence in their lives. And after 24 months, they are tainted with that disease forever,” O’Leary continued on the podcast. “They’ll always be good consultants, but they will never achieve greatness in any way.”

There’s a lot of money in entrepreneurship—with O’Leary himself boasting a net worth of around $400 million—and premier consulting jobs can also offer salaries in the high six figures. While the payoff is much higher in selling billion-dollar businesses, the serial investor insists that building companies isn’t about getting rich quick. You might have to sacrifice weekends off, but the independence that comes with it makes it worthwhile.

“I’ve always said it’s not about the pursuit of money. It’s not about the pursuit of greed. You will fail if you do that,” O’Leary said. “It’s the undying love of freedom.”

Fortune reached out to O’Leary for comment.

The one trait successful entrepreneurs have

For the one-third of people who do go on to become entrepreneurs, O’Leary says the best of the best all have one quality in common: They can tune out the “noise” of their personal lives, to get the day’s three to five most important things done straight away.

“This signal-to-noise ratio to be successful, for Steve Jobs, 80/20—80 signal, 20 noise,” O’Leary explained. “If you go back in history, you’re going to find out that the geniuses of their time were close to 100% signal.”

It’s something he saw not only in his former business partner Jobs, but also in Elon Musk.

“Elon Musk, he has no noise. He does not deal with noise,” O’Leary said. “60 seconds of every minute, 60 minutes of every hour, the 18 hours he’s awake, it’s all signal. And look what he’s achieved.”

Other successful entrepreneurs recognize different ingredients for success. O’Leary’s former Shark Tank cohost Mark Cuban echoed that there’s one trait he sees in successful people: a strong work ethic. Tennis icon Serena Williams similarly believes that people need to grind “every day,” and be “very disciplined” to get to the top.

Meanwhile, venture capitalist mogul Marc Andreessen believes that successful people can’t turn off their desire to grow their companies. It’s a star quality the billionaire Netscape founder said “very few” embody—with Tesla founder Elon Musk being an exception.

“There is this decision that people have to make, which is, ‘Okay, if I have the latent capability to do this, is this actually what I want to spend my life doing?’” Andreessen said in an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast in 2023. “‘And do I want to go through the stress and the pain and the trauma and the anxiety and the risk of failure?’”