Business

Here's Why This ‘Shark Tank' Investor Says He Hated Mark Cuban For Two Years

Posted October 14, 2014 11:00 pm

Eugene Kim

<img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/543ef6baeab8ea3107e7a42a-464-348/shark-tank-25.jpg" border="0" alt="Shark Tank">If you're a fan of ABC's reality pitch show "Shark Tank," you know how things can really heat up quickly among the "sharks," or the panel of judges.

Every week, contestants pitch their business idea to the sharks, who either decide to invest in the startup or pass. All the sharks are extremely successful business owners, so they have millions of dollars (if not billions) sitting in their bank, competing to invest in the next big thing.

So on almost every episode, viewers get to see the sharks, including Mark Cuban, engage in almost WWE-like trash talking, big brouhaha moments.

But if you ever thought those were scripted, you're wrong.

According to Robert Herjavec, the CEO of The Herjavec Group, who's also one of the sharks, those heated moments could lead to real animosity among the judges.

"Man, I hated Mark for the first two years. And he didn't like me, either," Herjavec told Business Insider. "We really get pretty emotional about this stuff."

Herjavec said that it's even led him to walk off the set while filming one of the episodes this season. "We have a segment coming up where, I can't tell you all about it, but Lorie, Mark, and I got into an argument. And I walked off because the next words out of my mouth were going to be rude and not very nice to them," Herjavec said.

"I actually stood up and said, Look, my mom told me that if I can't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all, but you're just really pissing me off right now. And I got up and walked out. And then Mark said, I have no problem being rude.'"

Cuban often happens to be at the center of a lot of these arguments because he's by far the richest among the judges and is capable of stealing some of the deals with higher offers. Some of the contestants also seem to like him better, waiting until he extends an offer, even after the other judges have made an offer earlier than he did.

"Of course we got offended. We hated him," Herjavec said, referring to Cuban. "But I hate Kevin when he gets a deal from me, and I hate Lorie when she steals a deal from me, too."

But Herjavec said things have changed in the latest season of "Shark Tank," as Cuban realized his investment strategy wasn't always working.

"I think when Mark came in, it kind of shifted everything because he was so big, and he invested in everything. But I think we've all figured out how to deal with Mr. Cuban, and I think Mr. Cuban's lost enough money to realize, Oh, I shouldn't invest in everything,'" he said.

"And what people have realized, too, is, just because he's super wealthy, it doesn't mean anything for the success or the value of my business."

In fact, Herjavec may be right in Cuban investing in "everything." Over the first four seasons, Cuban invested in the most number of deals and spent the most money among all sharks, according to this blog on "Shark Tank."

See Also:

<ul><li>Shark Tank' Investor Talks About Hating Mark Cuban, His Best Deal So Far, And The Key To Success For Any Startup</li><li>In 2 Sentences, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff Explains Why Something Called Analytics' Is The Hot New Thing</li><li>How Being Entrepreneur-In-Residence Helped This Man Build His Fourth Startup After Selling His Third One For $500 Million</li></ul>

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