2019 Creative Arts Emmy Awards

'Shark Tank' Star Barbara Corcoran Loves To Fire People

Home / Stars / 'Shark Tank' Star Barbara Corcoran Loves To Fire People

By Arthur Boiron on April 16, 2023 at 9:45 PM EDT

Barbara Corcoran is one of these few success stories we often hear in the entrepreneur life. Now one of the world's most successful women in real estate and a star in the hit TV Show Shark Tank,' her life wasn't always easy when she was a kid, as she says in the podcast "The Diary Of A CEO." When she was young, Barbara had dyslexia and had a hard time in school because of that, but that's one of the reasons she became successful in the end. Before she started her own business, she had around 22 jobs.

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But one day, Barbara found out that the "old boys," as she calls them, didn't have any new ideas for real estate, and that's when she knew she could do something in this business. That's why her boyfriend, Ramon Simone, offered to loan her $1000 to start a business with him at that time. And after seven years, he ran off with her secretary and said she would never succeed. She took that personally, and that's how she became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.

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Shark Tank apos s Barbara Corcoran Seen Leaving The View Appearance
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Great story, huh? However, this is not the part that interested the most people in the podcast; that's something that seems totally against Barbara Corcoran's success story but faithful to the character she is today in the TV Show "Shark Tank," where she is a shark.

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Barbara Corcoran Says She Loves To Fire People

Barbara Corcoran knew she had to become stronger, intractable, and adamant to become a successful entrepreneur. And that's also one of the reasons why she became a star in 'Shark Tank.' But during the podcast, she went too far for the US people who continue to experience a labor shortage. Shared on Tiktok by Steven Bartlett, the 30-year-old host of the podcast, the clip hit 2.2 million views and a ton of adverse reactions in the comments because of what she says at the beginning of the clip.

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"I would love to call someone into my office on Friday. I love firing people on Friday. I would stop by someone's desk on a Wednesday and say, 'Hey, would you have any time, sometime on Friday?' — They should have heard about the rumors … I couldn't wait till they came in to fire them!" is what she said on the podcast. Luckily for her, she lives in the US because if she were French, particularly with the ongoing protests, the population's reaction would have been terrible.

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However, that doesn't mean people who saw that clip weren't upset by what she said, particularly with the context going on in the US. When Steven Bartlett asks for more details about why she likes to fire people, she talks about the type of workers she is talking about: "I picked out negative individuals, and my attitude toward the negative person was they were ruining my good kids. Because negative people have to have somebody else to be negative with them — they gotta talk to somebody."

Barbara Corcoran visits Good Morning America in New York
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So Barbara Corcoran's excuse for firing people is that if she keeps negative people in her company, it will make other employees fail because of their negativity. Well, most people will tell you It's OK to be negative because being positive could always be worse than being negative sometimes, mainly if a situation in the company is critical. But she specified again the people she was talking about: "I'm not talking about people who tell you what you're doing wrong. They're invaluable so that you can get better. I'm talking about chronic complainers and negative people; you gotta eliminate them." But while people were starting to understand her point even though they were upset, she added that she doesn't tell people why they are fired: "I don't know, you just don't fit the company." So now the question is, what did the comment section on Tiktok think about it?

The Comment Section Reactions

"I mean, OK, but you LOVE it?": this one simple question in the comments perfectly sums up everything. What Barbara Corcoran said in the podcast was very awkward, and most people felt she was trying to justify herself, knowing she said something wrong. The word "Love" seems a little bit exaggerated here.

"I wonder where she keeps the Dalmatian skin coat": this comment shows that because of those words and how she talks about it, she has been victimized by most people now, but it doesn't seem like she wanted to say on camera that she enjoyed doing it. In the end, even though it is harsh in those times, it still fits her character, and there's no doubt that one day, she will talk about that story to say that she doesn't love to fire people; it was just something she didn't communicate well.

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