What do you bring to Money Court? I’ve got a portfolio of over 35 companies, and every day there are disputes. That’s just the nature of business. So I’ve been doing it a long time. And no, I’m not a legal judge, but I resolve a lot of issues. Why? Because it’s good for business. The worst thing that can happen in a business is to have a money dispute; it just freezes everything up. I’m constantly asking Katie and Ada, “What does the law say here? What is the law guiding me to do?” And if I don’t like what the law says, screw it—I’ll rule on the side of the business. Why do you think people are coming to you to resolve financial disputes? I’ve come to the conclusion that you may not like me, but you trust me. I try to tell the truth all the time; it’s not always easy. In the context of Shark Tank, I’m the shark that says, “It’s a zero and you’re wasting your money.” Not everybody likes that clarity, but they trust it. The verdicts on Money Court will be enforced even though it isn’t a “legal” court. How hard is it to find litigants willing to settle on TV? We’re not having any problem casting the show. A result of the pandemic is the courts have millions of cases up backed up like a logjam and businesses are in chaos. Everybody’s got an issue. How does the relationship with Katie and Ada work? Do they have a say in the final decision? Or do they give you their knowledge and then you make the decision? I make the final decision, but I don’t ignore them. Ada has been doing this a long time. She was a judge, one of the youngest ever on the bench. She’s really savvy, so I’ve come to respect her opinions. It’s not often that I go against them, but it does happen. I try and look at it and say, “Wait a second, this business is not functioning, it’s not working.” And very often these family businesses start as that, family businesses. They’re families, they grow, they get bigger, they’re successful and then poo-poo hits the fans. Money causes rifts between siblings or between parents and their kids, and often strangers come into businesses, they grow and they end up in litigation. You’re going to see a wide, wide, broad range of cases. I had no idea what this was going to be like. Nobody does when you start a new format like this. But I’ll tell you a secret I learned years ago in making television, and I’ve done a lot of TV in my life. The index you really want to watch is, you’ve got the entire production crew there. If the makeup people are glued to the monitors, if the lighting people are glued to the monitors, if the sound guys can’t stop watching the screen, you’ve got a hit. They’re watching the live line feed. No, it’s not the final product but when we break and they come over and say, “S–t, what’s going to happen?” They’re engaged in the story, they’re in it in the moment, and that is great television. That’s exactly what we have here in Money Court. What factors do you weigh before you deliver justice? Or is there an example you can give of a particular case? I’m not going to talk about an individual case; we have all kinds. But there was a case where a mother and daughter had a legal dispute about her career. It’s one of those mom-manager situations, almost like a BritneySpears type of situation. We get to read the basics of the case first, and then, of course, you start hearing from the litigants. It was clear as the minutes rolled on that there was something really deep and broken in that relationship, really broken. It was very emotional, very powerful. I don’t think there was a dry eye on the set; it was brutal. And that’s part of what happens, you’ve got to peel these onions and you keep getting deeper and deeper into the story. It was really something. I didn’t anticipate that. Because usually you don’t have that kind of problem in business, it’s more binary. It’s you make money, you lose money. But this was a broken mother-daughter relationship because of money, because of litigation, because of something that happened a long time ago. It was really something and I think we’re all going to learn from it. That’s what’s great about this: You watch these cases, you learn stuff about your own family too. Everybody’s going to see themselves in these cases. What has Shark Tank taught you? When people first come out to the carpet, they’re right in front of me. Over the last few years, I’ve taken to just looking at them. This may sound crazy, but I can tell after just 30 or 40 seconds: winner or loser. And I’m never wrong. There’s an aura around people that are successful. There’s a look in their eyes, a confidence that losers don’t have. Is there a Shark Tank deal that you’re most proud of, or one that you’re happiest with? Each day with my portfolio, my family of companies—and this happened this morning just before we started talking—I get a call of euphoria. Somebody calling me saying, “We just had a takeout offer. They want to buy us for $100 million cash.” And I also get a call saying, “This is a catastrophe, I think we’re going bankrupt.” It’s like a human drama every day, and I’ve just learned to roll with it. Just roll with those punches. I try and help every way I can. We’re going to be announcing a big exit shortly. One of my early Shark Tank companies is being acquired by a big brand for cash. And every time I get a deal like that, I buy a new watch. I’ve got a lot of watches. It’s my habit to associate a successful exit with a new timepiece. And so, this is going to be a big one. It’s wonderful, we’ve created so many millionaires. We’ve sold billions of dollars’ worth of consumer goods and services. Who knew this would happen? Nobody. You think about what Shark Tank has become; it’s like some giant, iconic platform that’s starting American businesses. Do you get hands on with your entrepreneurs once you’ve struck a deal? We run weekly calls. What we do is we go through the entire portfolio. My main job—and this is for all sharks really—is to help them reduce customer acquisition costs. What can I do to blow up their business on my social media platform? What can I do to get more consumers learning about their product or service? And I’ll give you an example. Bertello Pizza Oven is one of the most successful kitchen items in the last three years on QVC. We sell thousands of pizza ovens a minute. Why? Because Chef Wonderful goes live. I put on my chef outfit; I cook pizza. And that brings in tens of thousands of viewers a minute and we sell thousands of ovens. I do it because it’s fun. I am a chef and I do enjoy products like that. But also, think about what I’m able to do. I’m able to tell everybody on my social media platform, “Today at two o’clock, live on QVC, see my new pizza recipes and check out Bertello.” And boom! Does that ever work. That’s really what it’s all about. How did you get the nickname “Mr. Wonderful”? We think it was said facetiously by [fellow Shark Tank investor] BarbaraCorcoran. She and I are good friends, but we don’t always see eye to eye. That’s probably how it started, and it stuck. When I land at an airport, the limo sign says “Mr. Wonderful.” I say to the guy, “Do you know my name?” He goes, “No, you’re Mr. Wonderful.” Your mom was a big influence in teaching you about investments, including the admonition to save one third of your money. Is that advice you still heed? I’m more pragmatic with my kids, I tell them 10 percent. My mother did 30 percent, and she kept a secret account from both of her husbands; she was married twice. When she passed away, the attorney that was running the estate called me—I’m the only brother—and said, “You’ve got to come down here, your mother died a very wealthy woman.” What she had done is she had packed away a third of her salary from her early 20s, and she worked a long time in her life. And she just bought Telco bonds. She thought people would turn their heat off before they stopped talking to each other. She was kind of right about that. And she also bought S&P dividend paying stocks. So a portfolio like that for 55 years really, really grows. It was incredible, but she only spent the interest and dividends, never the principal. So that’s the lesson learned. And when I looked at that, many of the financial services that I design are based on that philosophy now. They’re all about distributing income and keeping the principal intact. You mentioned earlier that whenever your shark deals get a big sale you buy a watch. Is that your biggest splurge or is there something else that you splurge on? I’m a photographer, a guitarist, and a very large watch collector. Those are the three things. I just was able to get a Q2 Leica, which if you’re a photographer is right now the el supremo street camera worldwide. They’re very, very hard to get. I’m very fortunate, being a shark is a great thing. Mr. Wonderful is well known, so I was able to convince them to let me buy one so I could use it. The same with guitars. I used to be a shareholder in Fender. We actually designed a Shark Tank guitar, and there’s only serial number 001 and 002. I own both of them and I’m thinking of doing an NFT later this year for charity and auctioning off that second guitar. I think that thing will go for a crazy price because it’s so unique. It’s got the signatures of all the sharks on it; it’s a real Stratocaster. I play it. It’s a beautiful instrument. But with this hype going on right now with NFTs, I thought I’d do both: create an NFT and auction it. This last 15 months have been really difficult for everybody. How has the pandemic affected you? I look at it in the context of the companies that I invest in. All those families, we all work together. America’s changed a lot. It’s pivoted to a new digital world, and I’ll explain it this way: We thought that in 15 percent of our companies, the staff would not come back to the office. So we were planning to reduce our rental space, our commercial space and some of our retail space by about 15 percent for this year. But we were wrong. It’s a third. Over 30 percent will not come back. Primarily the people in accounting, compliance and logistics that used to work in cubicles, they’re now living in the ’burbs with their families, and they don’t want to commute. I’m amazed. So all over the country—our big offices are in New York, Florida, Texas, and California—we’re going through this massive real estate audit right now looking at all of the space we’re cutting back on. The other area we’re saving millions on is business travel. So many people don’t want to get on a plane anymore when they don’t have to. I’m not saying it won’t come back, but I think our savings is going to be about 40 percent there versus two years ago, which is great for the businesses. And, lastly, and this is the real shockaroo for me: You take a company like Lovepop greeting cards, which is America’s fastest-growing greeting card company. It’s one of my Shark Tank companies, a very, very famous deal. Before the pandemic, we were 90 percent retail. In other words, you’re in the drug store, you’re in the grocery store, you’re in the train station, you pick up a card for Mother’s Day. It’s an emotional moment purchase. Today we’re 79 percent direct-to-consumer at twice the gross margin. That happened in 14 months because people got so used to buying stuff online, they don’t want to go out anymore. They’re just ordering greeting cards 10 at a time. It’s incredible. So we do a Mother’s Day kit, a Father’s Day kit, an Easter kit, Hanukkah, Christmas, and so on, and we have this following of collectors that are buying direct from us. This direct-to-consumer digitization is really, really pronounced. It’s happening across the board. It’s a massive change. Nike is now 50 percent direct-to-consumer around the world. They thought it would take them six years; it took five months. But here’s what’s also changed. I look at my expenses on an aggregate basis on every income statement. I used to look at it and say, “What’s my fastest-growing expense?” Two years ago, when I would teach in business schools or wherever, I would tell people, “Look, the only career you want is engineering, and then engineering, and if you have extra time, do some engineering because you’ll be guaranteed a job and you’ll make a ton of money.” But that’s not true anymore. Artists, storytellers, videographers, photographers, animators, that’s my biggest expense now. Because when I have to do something on a new product launch, or redesign a website, I need animations, I need 3D images, I need great storytelling, I need 59-second videos. I used to pay nothing for that, now I’m competing for the best editors. They’re making a quarter of a million dollars a year now. They used to make 40 or 50 grand. So there are no starving artists anymore. Nobody’s starving if you’re good. It’s incredible.
