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Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks and a Shark on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” is launching a new podcast in which he engages in candid discussions with successful people not just about their accomplishments — but also
about their “defining failures.”
Lubetzky’s “Build or Break” is a new weekly video podcast premiering Sept. 3 on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major audio platforms. The show “goes beyond the highlight reel, uncovering the defining failures, pivotal setbacks and breakthrough moments that shaped some of today’s most accomplished entrepreneurs, creators, athletes, entertainers, politicians and business leaders,” according to the announcement.
On the podcast, Lubetzky and his guests talk about the obstacles they have faced in the lives and how they transformed those moments into lasting success.
Three episodes are being released Sept. 3, featuring separate interviews with Kevin O’Leary (a longstanding “Shark Tank” fixture), former NBA star Chris Paul, and jewelry and fashion designer Kendra Scott. Guests in upcoming episodes include Matthew McConaughey, Chip and Joanna Gaines, Mark Cuban, Jason Alexander, Jamie Siminoff, Barbara Corcoran and Steven Bartlett (host of popular podcast “The Diary of a CEO”).
Lubetzsky says the observation that inspired “Build or Break” was this: “People who have achieved a lot are comfortable putting themselves in uncomfortable situations.”
“My aspiration is that my guests will say this is the best interview they’ve ever done,” he tells Variety. People who tune into watch or listen to the show, he says, “are going to laugh and they’re going to cry, I mean that literally.”
“Build or Break” is a program of the Lubetzky Family Foundation and ties into his Builders initiative. Initially, the podcast will not run advertising, he says, but the goal is for the show to become financially self-sustaining.
Lubetzky has a dedicated studio in Austin, Texas, for recording “Build or Break,” and he’s also traveled to interview guests in New York, Los Angeles and other cities. To date, he’s done 30 interviews and expects to do “hundreds” more.
Who’s on his guest wish list? Lubetzky says he’d love to have sit-down sessions with Steven Spielberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (If he could turn back time, the top historical figures he would want to interview are George Washington, Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein.)
In the podcast interviews, Lubetzky focuses attention on what he calls his “four Cs” — curiosity, compassion, creativity and courage — as the values that drive builders to make things that benefit society at large. “The ‘us versus them’ narratives in today’s media tend to leave us all feeling powerless,” he says. “One of the best antidotes to that is creating, innovating, solving problems and believing again in our power to build things.”
Alongside the “Build or Break” podcast, Lubetzky is launching an interactive pop-up museum installation in New York City. Called “The Art of Failure,” the installation located at 22 Wooster St. in Manhattan will be open to the public, free of charge, Sept. 3-5. The exhibition celebrates “the imperfect journeys behind extraordinary achievements,” according to Lubetsky. Artifacts on display include rejection letters, failed prototypes, discarded ideas, audition tapes, handwritten notes and more — all displayed as if they were “priceless works of art,” he says.
“‘The Art of Failure’ leans into the concept that we need to celebrate our setbacks,” he says.
Lubetzky, a Lithuanian-Mexican Jewish immigrant, calls himself a “social entrepreneur building bridges” to “prevent what happened to his father, a Holocaust survivor, from happening again.” His Builders initiative is aimed at promoting a global movement of constructive problem-solvers “trying to advance the will of the people.”
Lubetzky joined “Shark Tank” in 2024 as the series’ first new regular investor in more than a decade. He is also the author of New York Times bestseller “Do the KIND Thing: Think Boundlessly, Work Purposefully, Live Passionately,” in which he outlines the principles of the snack company he founded in 2004.
Watch the trailer for “Build or Break”:
