Recently, Nick Noone, co-founder and CEO of Peregrine, was introduced to Candace Parker, sports broadcaster and retired WNBA star, by mutual friends. They hit it off. The two share a passion for athletics. (Noone was a Stanford gymnast.) And both have an interest in startups. (Parker is an active angel investor.) After Noone described how his startup sells Palantir-esque data analytics software to local police and public safety departments, Parker insisted that he meet someone she knew: Shaquille O’Neal.

“Well, she’s on TV with Shaq,” Noone explained. “And she told me, ‘Shaq loves public safety.’” After she put them in touch, O’Neal and Noone spoke over FaceTime. A few weeks later, Shaq called Noone back. “It was, like, 6 p.m.—I’m out on a date at dinner—and I get a FaceTime from Shaq, and he’s like, ‘Yo, you got to meet the police chief of Baton Rouge: he’s the man,” said Noone, doing a fair Shaq impression.

He was recalling the story from his Baton Rouge hotel room one afternoon last month, having flown to Louisiana to meet the police chief earlier in the morning after O’Neal connected them. They didn’t strike a deal that day, but he left feeling optimistic. “It was a great preliminary conversation,” said Noone, having long honed a slow and steady sweet talk for winning over government bureaucrats, a skill he first developed while working at Palantir.