Daymond John Had Ulterior Motives For Considering A Job On ‘Shark Tank’

If you’re a fan of seeing Daymond John on Shark Tank, you can thank at least one person: Mark Burnett. The famed reality show producer, who brought Survivor, The Voice, and Celebrity Apprentice to the airwaves, asked to meet with John as he was putting together a team of panelists for what would become Shark Tank. But John took the meeting with another idea in mind.

As the founder of FUBU told the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, John fancied a few new reality show ideas of his own and relished the opportunity to pitch them to one of the industry’s most successful hitmakers. John never thought Shark Tank would work — who would be interested in a show about business negotiations? — but the chance to talk shop would come around only rarely.

So John agreed to try out things in the Tank, but had those brilliant ideas in his back pocket — and planned to have them in front of Burnett in short order.

“I said, ‘Okay, I will go out there and shoot the show, but I need to be able to pitch Mark Burnett three of my ground-breaking television ideas if I do.”

Unfortunately, those ideas landed with a heavy thud when presented to Burnett, something in retrospect John does not particularly mind. He described the encounter as occurring over a meal.

“I pitch Mark Burnett my ideas. We had eggs and bacon. Before he finishes his eggs, he shot down all three of my ideas. Now that I think of it, they were crappy.”

John failed to disclose what those crappy ideas were — so perhaps they will make it to the airwaves one day after all, even if Burnett is not interested in making them.

While John is promoting his new business venture, a co-working space called Blueprint + Co. previously reported on Inquisitr, he’s also discussing the new administration. In an interview with Salon published last week, John said he did not vote for the new president but was choosing to maintain a positive outlook for the moment.

“I did not vote for Trump. I did not believe that he would be a good leader, but my fellow Americans did, and I bleed red, white and blue and that was the process, so I have no choice but to hope that this man does the best he can do for our country and our people.”

In the meantime, John’s Shark Tank co-star, Mark Cuban, is not mincing words about the new president. Cuban and Trump had an exchange of words over twitter, according to Us Weekly, where Trump said Cuban was not “smart enough to run for president.” Cuban apparently jabbed back by wearing a jersey emblazoned with the number 46 at the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game on Friday. Since Donald Trump is the 45th president, if Cuban were to follow he would be number 46. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks, however, claimed the number was a coincidence.

John, for his part, said entrepreneurs should worry less about who is in office than working to make their own businesses competitive. He said some industry changes, such as technology and automation, are more disruptive than any potential actions by governments.

“You can look at your business. It’s ’17 right now and you’ve been operating the same way in business since ’07, Trump ain’t going to help you.”

Shark Tank airs Friday nights on ABC.

[Featured Image by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images]