Billionaire Mark Cuban isn’t shy about sharing what he doesn’t like about his job on ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank,” where aspiring entrepreneur hope to sell part of their sometimes brilliant and sometimes idiotic ideas for lots of money.
“I hate when we have kids on,” Cuban recently revealed on “The Lowe Post” podcast.
“Hate, hate, hate. Kids and animals. Kids and animals are the worst. The worst, the worst, the worst.”
It’s not that Cuban hates kids (he has three kids of his own), it’s just that he hates when good television tries to mix with good business. Sure, people may love seeing cute kids and puppies, but they don’t reveal anything about how well a business actually performs.
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Cuban also explained that when an entrepreneur brings their child with them to a pitch, he feels that he has to censor himself, sometimes meaning that he can’t call the parent an idiot in front of their child when he feels he must.
“You just can’t be honest,” Cuban said.
He also really hates child-entrepreneurs, or children who serve as company mascots for businesses their parents started that they actually know nothing about.
Cuban also hates entrepreneurial sob stories and inspirational stories about child prodigies. He explained a rule he adopted from renounced venture capitalist Fred Wilson: “The longer the backstory, the worse the deal.”
Whenever Cuban hears a sob story coming on, his investor sense starts tingling, and not in the good way.
So if you ever find yourself pitching to Mark Cuban or a like-minded investor, don’t bring your kids, don’t bring any animals, you better not be a rich-kid entrepreneur and spare him your sob story. Those are a few of Cuban’s most hated things.
