On Friday (October 18), Shark Tank returns for its Season 16 premiere, and this season, there will be a new full-time shark joining the fold: Daniel Lubetzky, who was a guest star for the past five seasons, is here to stay. So what does the Kind Bar magnate bring to the show (besides great snacks for his co-stars)?
Lubetzky told TV Insider that the number one thing he’ll be looking for when evaluating pitches from entrepreneurs is something completely intangible: “Being able to think on your feet and react quickly is probably the most important characteristic for a successful entrepreneur,” he said. “I would add also integrity because in the life of an entrepreneur, there will be options and there will be downs. And where they’re down and you’re gonna be supporting them in the trenches, you want to be able to support people that you enjoy helping, that deserve the help. So I think integrity is super important for me in evaluating a candidate.”
The snackfood founder’s deep knowledge of the food industry will also be a boon to Season 16, as Kevin O’Leary teased it’ll be a healthfood-heavy season. “There’s a whole movement in the food that we eat in America. People are getting hip to the fact that they eat a lot of garbage. And I think in this last couple of years, for me, I’ve been focusing on because I’m into this longevity thing. Now about what I eat. So I care about salt,” he said. “What you stick in your mouth matters, and we care, and we’re starting to see a lot of products that reflect that mindset of America switching away from crap.”
“He really knows the food space,” O’Leary said of Lubetzky. “A new mind on Shark Tank, that’s a great thing.”
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It won’t just be makers of mushroom teas and the like that he makes deals with throughout the season, though. Lubetzky also previewed some of the products he’ll be interacting with, saying, “There’s a lot of really cutting-edge innovative companies. I think the intersection of technology and retail, we saw a lot of that in this last round because the whole real estate and mall space is being redefined. People need to come up with new solutions. So a lot of the reinventions were AI technology are being connected to real life and you see a lot of alternatives… There’s a lot of companies introducing alternative medicine.”
Perhaps most important of all? He brings a bit of humor to the mix, too. When speaking alongside O’Leary and Mark Cuban after their joint appearance on The View, he teasingly challenged Cuban to explain his tendency to swipe in-the-works deals with O’Leary, which earned a laugh and an earnest response from the long-timer: “Sometimes it’s like Kevin goes off for days, you know, he negotiates for six hours every deal and it’s only a one hour show and there are just times when I’m like I was on the fence about the company, but Kevin is just annoying me, so it’s like, ‘Okay, here’s the deal,’” Cuban admitted with a chuckle. In other words, Lubetzky will be keeping ’em on their toes and laughing.
Shark Tank, Fridays, 8/7c, ABC
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