Daymond John / FUBU / The Shark Group

Daymond John is an American fashion entrepreneur, branding consultant, author, and founding Shark on ABC's Shark Tank (Season 1, 2009). Born in 1969 in Brooklyn and raised in Hollis, Queens — the same neighborhood that produced Run-DMC and LL Cool J — he founded FUBU (For Us By Us) in 1992 with $40 and his mother's sewing machine. Over the next decade, FUBU grew into one of the most successful urban streetwear brands of the 1990s, with lifetime retail sales reported at over $6 billion. The company famously got its first real break when LL Cool J wore a FUBU hat in a 1997 Gap commercial, which John orchestrated guerrilla-style.