AUSTIN — "Stevey baby, it's Shaqy, can I get one of those iPhones?" Shaquille O'Neal remembers asking then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs during several phone calls in 2007 after Apple announced the original iPhone. But despite the begging, Jobs denied Shaq's requests.

The former basketball star recalls Jobs saying "a lot of celebrities" were calling him to get their hands on the iPhone early and he should call back in a few days, Shaq says in the below video interview with Mashable's Brian Anthony Hernandez at South by Southwest.

Shaq, who played 19 NBA seasons and has a master’s degree in business administration, was at SXSW looking for the next hot startup. To do so, he launched "Pitch Shaq," a competition where startups submitted 15-second elevator pitch videos on Tout — the same social video-sharing service he used in 2011 to announce his retirement from basketball.

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Shaq picked two app winners: Speakerfy, which lets users play music in sync on several devices, and Beam, which allows stuff to easily transfer to and from mobile to desktop.

"A lot of these guys have the ideas but not the capital to back them," Shaq says.

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Homepage image via Earl Mcgehee/Getty Images for SXSW