It also exposed me to Lehman Brothers at 53rd and Park Avenue. "It taught me discipline, it taught me about having a job. Though he didn't know it then, the job lit an entrepreneurial fire beneath him. I always wanted to help my mother instead of being a burden to her." I could support myself and I didn't have to be another burden to my mother. I was a foot messenger for First Boston, a private banking firm. But it was also my fascination for making money and also my love for actually being able to go to New York City every single day of the work week. "Now, knowing I was dyslexic, I know that the job was my workaround for not wanting to go to school. "And you would get the same kind of credits for it," he recalls. An only child raised by his mother and grandmother in Hollis, Queens, he recalls his mom working multiple jobs-ranging from an executive assistant at Lehman Brothers to the luggage department at American Airlines-to make ends meet.ĭaymond was fortunate to be in a co-op program at Bayside High School that allowed him to work full-time and attend school on an alternating weekly basis. His mother, Margot, and father, Garfield, who was born in Trinidad, were divorced after John's 10th birthday. Investing in more than 60 companies, he gives new meaning to the word "busy."ĭaymond Garfield John was born on February 23, 1969.
Lately he has launched blueprint + co., an open workspace for like-minded entrepreneurs. He is a three-time author and ubiquitous speaker, who espouses an unpretentious, pragmatic, and sensible business philosophy. Aside from being a venture capitalist on the riveting, follow-the-dough reality show "Shark Tank," John, 48, was selected by former President Barack Obama as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. We were all just smoking and sitting around." He then recites a litany of anti-skills: "Can't dribble a basketball, can't sing, can't draw, didn't know anybody, didn't go to college-but that didn't stop me at all." "It was the first cigar I had that I really liked," he says. Looking back on how it all began, he recalls smoking a Romeo y Julieta, as he is now. His is a rags to riches tale-or a Queens to universe tale if you want the true scale of it-from selling hats from a garbage bag in New York to selling globally.
His size is inversely proportionate to his achievements. "And I always wear some sort of boot, because I am a short guy." "It's a Brioni tie," he volunteers, "with a little pop of orange." Indeed, the orange, set against the pinkish background of the tie, makes for his boldest fashion statement. He sports his signature diamond earrings, blinking above a gray, pin-striped wool suit, accented with French cuffs and massive gold cufflinks.
The tilted, eager posture suggests that what lies ahead of him is the only direction he considers worthwhile. His face rounded by that boyish smile he flashes on the television show "Shark Tank," he listens keenly. Daymond John is sitting, pitched forward at the waist.
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