Daymond John: The Truth About Entrepreneurship And AI's Impact

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0:47This is the Ed Myland Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So today, let's see. I don't know. All of you already know him, so I'm not going to do a long introduction. Literally all of you know who this man is. I think he is one of – I was thinking about this morning as I was feeling so good about getting a chance to chat with my friend here. I think he's one of the 10 most important entrepreneurs of this century. Can you imagine that? One of the 10 most important. I think this guy is about to interview Henry Ford or something.

1:24you are for a variety of reasons and you know that he's uh you know him from shark tank you know from hubu but uh here's what i'll tell you that you don't know he is a tremendous human being he's a really good man uh been really good to me when i was shooting a pilot for my tv show i made a couple phone calls to some people and said i need your help he said how can i do it brother immediately jumped on and helped me film some stuff for a pilot i was doing and uh so not only is he a really successful person I think he's really grown into you know somebody that he feels good about and that I admire very very much so Damon John aka Henry Ford welcome to the show you know thank you thank you you know what it is a truly an honor that you said that you you are truly one of the most amazing people and the only other person that says something in that realm like that made me feel inadequate even though I know you're giving me love and and I know you're not somebody to say something you don't believe is.

2:22There was this young man who was running for president. His name was Barack Obama. And I was at an event and he just got the party nomination. And then, you know, hey, how you doing? And this is my FUBU days. I was like, hey, I'm Damon John from FUBU. He said, are you kidding me? One of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. That's awesome. And I was like, this guy's full of crap. and then later on he would say uh we're gonna make this country for us by us and i was like he's on to something either he is a pot he's a politician for sure i was like he he knows what he's doing but thank you so much for the the really amazing intro and i you know the respect is mutual and i can't say that i'm like that with most people because you know you can only pick a couple people that you can be like that with and i appreciate being like that with you thank you my brother and uh i'm glad that i could finally validate uh 44's sentiments with you today so first things first i was saying this off camera you look good what are you doing thank you man i saw you i saw you a few weeks ago we spoke at the same event together and i thought the same thing you walked up got real close you hugged me i'm like he looks younger or better what are you doing i'm doing everything you know i'm i'm a biohacking enthusiast i am not a scientist doctor or anything of that nature you know way more about health than i do because you get very granular but i call myself now more like the um uh what was the guy who used to travel world eating food anthony bordain of biohacking i'm trying everything i'm doing everything i started going down the rabbit hole i had cancer in 2017 i really didn't i thought i thought that was a wake-up call i didn't take care of myself uh because then colby came around i was drinking more than ever.

4:09My wife, who was an amazing strategic partner, she didn't make it a deal breaker. She just kept looking at me and saying, are you okay? And I saw the disappointment in her eyes. And then I started following some of her protocols. And before you know it, I was red betting and talking to Asprey one minute and Gary Breck of the other and Dr. Aime in the other and Greenfield the other. Before you know it, every single thing I was looking at, I was like, this is going to kill me i'm going to still eat it but this is going to kill me my red bed right here there's my red bed there you go i just i got the light system behind me i got the biocharger over here it's infectious you know you start doing it the team starts doing it you know i just injected my peptides i got from ben green greenfield about i don't know 30 minutes ago and dr amon was the last guy i interviewed on the show so we're very similar on this what's working here to tell the audience something though and not everybody can afford all of these things either unfortunately i think the more and more people get access to medicine over time hopefully it becomes something that everybody has access to is there something you've done you're like look if you can afford this or you can do it i recommend x or y something definitively that's worked as you know man you've been on this for a while 95 percent you know if you get out of this conversation a bunch of gadgets you've wasted your time 95 of the things that we do have absolutely zero to do with technology you know drinking as much water as you can with no chlorine in it uh eating pickles and anything naturally fermented with all of the protein but more importantly i fast 30 hours a week uh that doesn't cost me anything right um i i do intermittent fasting and you know that's why i slip up.

5:56I'm not an expert. And that's what I say. Like, you know, I don't have great bodies like Ed or Gary Brecker. I'm not going to talk high level. I look at it. We're putting 100 poisons in us a day. Can I get it down to 60? You know, can I go and can I can I do flossing and making sure the plaque is not going into my system and get thorough about that? Can I put on the blockers so I reduce the blue lights in my home at night? You know, these very simple things that I'm doing is making the big difference because I can't take a biocharger on the road with me and I travel 250 days a year. You travel that much.

6:33You know, if you have you on, I got to talk business with you. The 95 % thing you just said, is there something that you used to really believe about business that you just, you're like, not anymore. That's irrelevant now. I mean, like an overall philosophy. Like I had a conversation with a realtor in Boston this weekend. His name is George Sarkis, number one dude in Boston. I love this kid. And he knows a lot of people in Boston, right? And I said, George, here's what you're limited by. Business used to be about who you know. Now it's about who knows you. Yeah. You got to get the who knows you part down.

7:08Something like that. Anything like that that occurs to you like this used to work or I used to think it and I don't anymore. Well, two things. I think that you need money to make money was one of my philosophies when I didn't have money. And then how did that reverse on me? is that when I had a lot of money and FUBU was coming up and I was able to acquire things and do new businesses, I felt throwing money at the business was going to solve it because my ego got in the way. I could throw$6 million at the business. My name is Damon John. And those are the two things that I learned. Number one, you have to love what you do and you have to be able to roll up the sleeves.

7:53If you don't want to be in it yourself, you have to find an amazing partner, distributor, strategic relationship and whatever the case is and somehow reward that person and know that that person had 20 years in the business. So that person will work 24 hours on this business and figure this out. So you can throw as much money as you want. But if you ask that question, money can, you know, you need money to make money and having money is great. Well, I always say 65 % of lotto winners and athletes are bankrupt three years after leaving the league or winning the lotto. That means money didn't work for them.

8:32And if money worked for everybody, well, then Blockbuster, BlackBerry, and Kodak would still be in business in Party City. It doesn't work for everybody. But you look at Forbes' top wealthiest 1 ,000 people, 65 % of them are self-made men and women. That means they were broke like you and I, how we started out. so it's not money it's putting in the work there is no shortcuts getting a partner that's going to put it in the work but no matter what you got to put in the work the second part about the ego was i thought that my name is just going to get me places no you have to work on that name and everybody is going to sit there and go yeah you'll go you'll go clothing right you you're going to be you're going to be an author now you're dyslexic you can barely even read that's not going to work oh you're going to be an investor you didn't go to harvard and yale you didn't work at a venture firm for all these periods of time they will always doubt you and until you prove your name and your name walks in that room before you people are just going to push you back and you have to constantly improve on your name and it takes you one second to destroy it you know so you know it those are the two things name and money you know you know ip and money how you been with rejection i i was with uh i was so excited to talk to you because you know you and i get asked like the same 25 questions most of the time so yeah and some stuff so i was with my daughter this thing to boston i was just talking about and she's graduated from clemson she's going to go into business and congratulations man yeah thank you i'm happy to not be paying for it anymore and uh that's the best part but yeah i was talking to her about this i said i I said, Bella, one of the things that she, I said, I don't know whether you'll make it.

10:17You're smart. You work really hard. You don't have that rich kid thing. Like she's a grind. You know, she, she, she's willing to, you know, get after it and hustle. But I said, I don't, where's it? I don't know. I don't know whether or not you can handle rejection in mass. Like, I don't know. And I said, that's one of the things that isn't really talked about that much is how does, does rejection not only affect you, like knock you out, but like wind you, slow you down, make you flinch a little bit. What about that element? Like if you're giving advice to just entrepreneurs in general, business people in general, did it bug you real deep in the beginning?

10:49And did you have to get over that? Or do you think that's one of your like quiet superpowers of all the rejection you kept steamrolling through it? Or did you have to learn to? Well, first of all, I'm married. So rejection is something I face every single morning and every single night. but um you know coming up i was able to power through it because i i looked around and what i what i accomplished i thought i didn't i didn't i didn't there wasn't social media i never saw anybody accomplish that at that level and so i kept going through things and it wasn't in a it wasn't a rejection to me it was like holy crap out of the 20 times somebody said no it was like Like, holy crap, somebody said yes, now it's game on.

11:38And I qualified the rejection. Well, why did they reject me? Well, is it because I'm African-American? Is it because I got left back in school? I don't have a history as a designer. And it made me want to give them more reasons to say why this will work. And I had to make it, as they call in Hollywood, an undeniable package, and showing them all the things that could work for them. But I'm human. You know, as I came up in the business and now all of a sudden I have a massive business. I mean, I'm doing$350 million a year, this and that, this and that. It seemed like the rejection became more painful and it hurt more because I was like, well, I did this already.

12:23Yes. No, man. You did that. And you know what? You were lucky. and the rejection hurt for about about four or five years but then i i i found ways to change that around and go you know what if they knew any better then they would be doing what i'm doing um you know um it you know if it was that easy then every would but he would be doing it so again you know i had to start really proving it but it's funny i saw i saw one time the obama and he was interviewing Mark Zuckerberg. And Mark was like, I still hear no. I was like, Mark Zuckerberg still here? No, he said, Damon, not Damon. He said to Barack, he said, when I came out with something and I was like, all these kids in Ivy League schools are going to be on this platform.

13:16Everybody said, no way. These kids are too uppity. Then when he heard, you know what? It's going to grow and I'm going to have all kids at the university. They were like, the Ivy kids are definitely not going to deal with these kids. Then when they heard that high school kids are going to be on it, oh that's it's over then when they heard a high school kid's gonna find out his nana is on the same or her nana's on the same platform no way then they said well you know what when you we're moving from desktops to little phones nobody's gonna be riding around the bike you know on this little thing it's nobody's gonna be on it then they said no in other country he still hears no and he said i kept thinking somebody's gonna build it bigger and better than me and nobody did and I said, I'm going to do it.

13:55So, you know, I still deal with rejection a lot. You know, you're only dying on TV. That would surprise people. You know, it's funny, being a public person, the cheers are big and it's not deserved. That's wrong. And the failures are deep and that's not deserved. That's wrong. It's somewhere in the middle. The rejection is in the middle. The praise is in the middle. And that's where you find, or I find, that I'm very comfortable with. Whether you're a founder, CEO, or an HR leader, building a global team usually means you've got to decide to set up a local entity or not. And that's exactly why Pebble is here.

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16:40It was backstage somewhere. I don't remember where it was. You were already very well known. But it feels to me like the more success you've had, ironically, like almost the more humble you've become. You think that's fair assessment? Yeah, I think so because it comes with age. You know, you may have met me, you know, Shark Tank had started 17 years ago. And, you know, I looked at the show, maybe one or two seasons and realized that no one's going to know who we are. It's a business show. And, you know, so hopefully that was the humble aspect. And then now, you know, 17 years later, every single living president has called me for advice and not for money.

17:18Every single living one. And I've met, you know, I've met so many great people, but also I've lost so many great people. I've lost 28 people in this last 16 months. You know, a couple of them, John Amos, Mr. C, Irv Gotti, Mutombo. And, you know, I got two. And then I'm just a realist. you know why would somebody respect me is it money well then you're looking the wrong guy because if mark cuban woke up with my money he's gonna think he's a crackhead and if bezos woke up with mark's money he's gonna think he a crackhead and if elon woke up with bezos money he's gonna think he a crackhead right so there's always gonna be somebody with a bigger wallet and a bigger brain and a more popularity with you so again if you walk in the room and you disarm people and just say, yo, I'm a human being, then it's cool.

18:08If they don't respect you and value for who you are right there, you're not going to make them respect and value. They're the wrong person to deal with anyway. They don't respect people, or they respect people for the wrong reasons. You're so right. I literally just had this conversation this weekend about the levels and literally used about three of the same names you just used. So here's what I like about Shark Tank. Obviously, it's made entrepreneurship a front and center topic. It's made it sexy. It's given it hope. I think there's more young people aspiring to be entrepreneurs than ever. And I think that show has a lot to do with it culturally.

18:43That's why I say you are one of the 10 most important people. You know exactly what I meant. Culturally, to have somebody who looks like you with your level of success on TV every single week in the entrepreneurial space is an important thing, plus all of the success you've had on top of that. So what I said is actually true. It's a fact. But having said all of that, I also think it's almost made people think two things. Anybody can be an entrepreneur, number one. So I want you to address that. And the other thing is, once guys or ladies get a little bit of money, everybody's become an angel investor.

19:19And the vast majority of them aren't very good at it. So one, I want you to speak to the entrepreneurship thing. And two, honestly speaking, had you not invested in any of these deals you found on Shark Tank, but just invested in businesses you drove that were your businesses, would you be wealthier had it just been your money in businesses that you could control and move yourself? No. I don't. That last one, that last question, ain't nobody asked me that one before. So probably about two of these other questions you haven't. So can anybody be an entrepreneur? No. No. As simple as that. And that's sometimes the beauty of life, that a lot of people can't be entrepreneurs, but they don't need to be.

20:06They're built differently. There are just a lot of people who are not risk takers. They don't have the vision. They have been brought up a different way where their parents told them that this is what success was, and they won't learn that until later on in their life. and they're just built they're not risk takers um so i do not believe everybody can be an entrepreneur do i believe everybody can and they do work for an entrepreneur yeah every batman like me needs a robin like but i always joke and i say i need a cap i need i'm captain kirk and i need spock because robin was a hundred percent a groupie anything batman did holy buttermilk batman how do you know you were going to drink poison?

20:45Right, right. You know? But Spock, you know, I will say that, you know, I'm Captain Kirk. You know, Captain Kirk was wild. He was a wild boy. He was running around. He was doing everything. Okay, we're going to do this. Sure. Spock would be like, listen here, Captain. There's 4 ,997 reasons why this is not going to work. Shut up, Spock. I'm doing it. And you know what Spock would do? He'd put his ass to sleep. And you need the person who's going to check you. You know, you need that person who's going to be that perfect yin and yang. You know, the person who's going to get detail-orientated and say, you know, I know you're doing a lot of stuff.

21:21And then really hit you sometimes and say, now we've got to really look at what's working. And so I think that there's a massive amount of people who can support entrepreneurs. But I do not think a lot of people could be entrepreneurs because it's a – I haven't met any – I've met very few entrepreneurs that were successful on their first venture. They're usually successful on their fourth or fifth, and you have to have a strong rejection muscle to open up a business again after you've been kicked in your teeth. All right, now the bigger one. Would you be wealthier had you just deployed the same capital?

21:54So you did no shark tank deals. You took your capital and put it into businesses that you drove, that you controlled, that were primarily under your influence. Would you be wealthier had you done that? 120 % I would Fubu would be back at at least a$200 -$400 million annual mark now if I did that and it's about learning again as we opened up you know when we first started Shark Tank nobody knew the show and the casting agents were casting agents they didn't sit there and watch hundreds of hours of Kevin and I and the Sharks all negotiating so So, you know, it's like you, Ed, they brought you in somebody, you know, now somebody brings somebody to Ed and you're a casting agent.

22:37They go, yeah, I'm doing$30 million in business. I have two employees. You're going to say, where exactly are you selling crack? You know, that's what you're going to ask, right? They didn't know what to ask. So they brought us poor deals. And as they brought us poor deals, then we also did not know how to deploy money right away. We'd give money right away, give money right away. We didn't say, what are the use of proceeds? We're going to give you X amount of money if you hit this mark, X amount of money you hit this mark. I paid$750 ,000 in legal fees just to vet about 10 companies the first year in Shark Tank when I didn't know there was a, you know, this software.

23:09A VC just put it in and, you know, so we were learning ourselves how to be true angel investors. And we also, then I started to say, well, you know what, I can either deploy, let's say, a million dollars a year, or I can pay$150 ,000, two or three salaries for somebody who is a licensing person, a salesperson. And I can then get different software, deploy that for about$200 ,000, and that's able to handle Shark Tank investments and other investments. So when you come to me, I can basically break down what you need and negotiate the points and options and various other things, the triggers, instead of just giving money.

23:50One of our guys on Shark Tank, the first year, he gave$500 ,000. The lady went off, paid all her bills, and bought a Mercedes. she never said he never did she said listen i'm gonna take money off the table is she wrong you know so we we grew to be who we are you know on the show and every day we're learning on how to deploy money different ways why one advisory seat i'm not trying to have hey ones for 900 companies i'm going to take an option you know so a lot of different things you know, changed over the years. So true on the K-1s. I'm just, I just got my last K-1 right now for last year. I'm like, dude, it just messes up your taxes.

24:30Anyway, that's inside baseball. It does. But I love, I love selling to the people, listen, you don't hand them in. I'm going to help you out. I'm going to call the IRS for you. Exactly. We'll straighten all that up right now because you're not messing up my stuff. Yeah. Then I get audited because you didn't send me the K-1 on time. Correct. Now we're in a new world. Like, I don't even know what it's going to look like? People ask me all the time, I wish I knew. I'm talking about this. Now we're in an AI world, not that we haven't been already. Is there something you're thinking, doing advice you'd give to entrepreneurs just about navigating this time?

25:09I mean, are you familiarizing yourself personally pretty deeply in different, you're not just chat GPT, but sales AI or Ask Elephant or all these other things that are out there like what's your whole view on where we're going i was speaking for a large corporation but i've been you know getting you know as you and i know we get to peek under the hoods of a lot of large organizations see what they're doing and there's a couple of different common uh discussions that are happening now of course talent what are you doing with talent how are you reducing your costs and increasing your sales and somebody said to me so what do you do for a hobby?

25:51And I said, you know, I just thought about for the last two years, I haven't done any of my hobbies because all I'm doing is studying AI. All I'm doing is studying biohacking and I'm studying live selling. Those are the three things that I'm studying. I said, because I need to get, I need to have a foot up on everybody because this is moving so fast that as a dyslexic and eight of the 12 sharks are dyslexic. So now I'm trying to see how can I be more efficient in my communication? How can I look at my legal and professional service costs and how can I reduce those every single month as AI is moving around?

26:34You know, trademark searches, design, designing things, this and that, legal. How can I bake more of that information And how can I teach my team and my team teach me to be more proficient? You have a bunch of questions for attorneys, but if you're using a lot of the AI technology, you have a better pointed question for pointed answers. So how am I utilizing all that? How can I mimic myself and come up with avatars and great content and editing? So I'm doing that all now. and yeah, I'm going to be looking at reducing not reducing my workforce. Most of my friends have reduced their workforce by 30%.

27:15I don't want to reduce my, yeah, 30 % due to AI. I don't want to reduce my workforce. I want to triple my business with my current workforce. I want my 30 to 50 people to now do this because this is where all of the opportunity is and then take that 30 to 50 people and then have five more divisions that are running really well because I love my people. I think this is a great time for people and opportunity. So yeah, I'm full out on AI in this sense. I'm also preparing myself. I'm going to be totally honest. I'm preparing myself for massive disruption in this country, in the world. when the have-nots start, you know, when most of these jobs for males are operating heavy machinery and trucking and things of that nature or cars, and they're all going autonomous, when retail is all going, you know, and for a lot of women who, of course, are CEOs and executives, but a lot of the services are now going to be AI, you know, retail and various other things and factories.

28:23Where are these people going? you know when we're when we're when you can go and get a tester robot for thirty thousand dollars and to get it for your home but you use that as your uh landscaping business because you have three of them where are these people going we're gonna we're gonna turn into california i know you live in california you know so i'm also trying to find ways to protect ourselves because you know You know what they say? When there's no supplies, conflict will rise, you know? That's why I bought an island. I love California, but I just left. But everyone, I want you to lean in.

29:07This is one of the smartest people in the world. And you just heard what he just said. I mean, do you think Alon calls it the post-work society? I don't know about that. But what do you think about, and this isn't even in my notes, But since you brought it up, you think guaranteed minimum income is like an inevitability, what Yang used to talk about? I do think it's inevitability. You do? How long of a window? But do you really believe that we're going to have a guaranteed minimum income at some point? I know you're not positive, but if you were looking at it and you think that's within the next five years, 10 years?

29:41I think it's within the next five years, and I don't think it's something going to be positive. I think if we looked at what happened when we were, you know, when we were stuck in COVID and there's a big money dump, I see that, you know, drinking went up, you know, and we have too much entertainment on these things right here. And I see that everybody was online for luxury goods. That's the only thing that kind of really, you know, increased. I think that the idle minds in that period of time in that bridge is going to be very, very dangerous. I think, you know, you know, there's going to be a lot of problems.

30:19I think you've got to idle mind with a lot of times for people to think and get upset. I think it's a problem. Here's what I think. I think in five years you all could go back and watch what we just talked about. And unfortunately, I completely agree with him on the wealth disparity and on it becoming a cultural, societal, real dramatic issue that may lead to a very dangerous point. Let's be real. Let's be real. If the jobs are going to decrease and the government's not going to catch up in time, and we're talking about from a state level all the way up to a higher level, don't you think when – And they have the data on how we're moving and what we're talking about and the sentiment.