Vinik managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1992 to 1996, where he averaged 17% annual returns.[6] After leaving Fidelity, he started hedge fund Vinik Asset Management, with partners including Michael Gordon (now President of Fenway Sports Group). He made investors 93.8% in his first 11 months and approximately 50% a year for the next three years. At the end of 2000, Vinik returned investors $4.2 billion and focused on managing his own portfolio.[4] Vinik and his partners closed down the fund in December 2013, and distributed $9 billion in assets.
In 2020, The Lightning won the Stanley Cup Championship, defeating the Dallas Stars 4 games to 2. Vinik could not be in the NHL's bubbles in Edmonton or Toronto, so he called into his players' locker room celebration, "congratulating them for their second Stanley Cup championship in team history" after their win over the Stars, according to Pat Pickens of NHL.com. Vinik, who purchased the franchise in 2010, was in Florida watching the Lightning complete their 18-7 run through the Stanley Cup Playoffs and "had to tell his players how happy he was." He said on a video call, "Hey guys, awesome job. So many years in the making, with new guys and the guys who have been here for a while, unbelievable effort. Dominant through the playoffs. You deserve it". In Tampa, Alexis Muellner writes winning hockey has "been the goal since" Vinik bought the team in 2010. The Stanley Cup is "one of the hardest trophies to win in sports." The achievement has been "as much a goal for the organization as has its widespread efforts to transform the community". Sports Business Journal profiled Vinik in 2015 following the Lightning's second appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals.
In 1998, Vinik and his wife, Penny, donated $1.25 million to endow a professorship at Duke's engineering school. The next year, they donated $5 million towards facilities at the engineering school.[10] In 2012, they donated $10 million to create a challenge fund to endow associate and full professorships dedicated to addressing complex societal challenges.[11] He donated $1.5 million to build a new Jewish Community Center in South Tampa.[3][12][13] With his wife, he also donated to Vanderbilt University in 2016-2017.[14]
