Daymond John on Mark Cuban’s ‘Shark Tank’ Exit: ‘Who Cares About the Sharks?’

variety.com:

Andrés Buenahora editor As businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban exits “Shark Tank” after this season, his fellow shark and entrepreneur Daymond John isn’t worried about what it might mean for the long-running ABC series. “The show will be around long after Mark, Daymond, Barbara and all of us,” John tells Variety. “(‘Shark Tank’) is the American dream, as you see with an Emmy after all these years and new people finding it.” Cuban announced last fall that he would depart “Shark Tank” after its 16th season, which launched last Friday.

John says that the cast was fortunate to have Cuban for more than a decade and commended his larger-than-life personality for contributing to the show’s success.

But John believes the series will continue to be successful in its post-Cuban era because it is bigger than any one person. “Who cares about the sharks, to tell you the truth,” John says. “It is really about that mom and pop who have risked every single thing in their life and they need one shot…it’s about that kid, that little dyslexic, brown boy named Daymond John, who never thought he would be anything…who comes up with an idea and says, ‘I’m going to find a community that I love, and I’m going to empower my community.’” Daniel Lubetzky, who has guest-starred on “Shark Tank” in the past, will replace Cuban as one of the primary sharks going forward.

John says he enjoys seeing the newer panelists such as Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers CEO Todd Graves, because they offer new perspectives and variations in business fundamentals to debate. “There’s one thing in the world that we can all agree upon as Americans: It’s the American dream,” John says. “When you stand on that carpet, it doesn’t care about your color, your.