Kevin O'Leary: One Founder, Two Tanks
Kevin O'Leary
Kevin O'Leary was born on July 9, 1954 in Montreal and made his fortune in software, co-founding SoftKey in 1986.
SoftKey acquired The Learning Company in 1995 for 606 million dollars and took its name, and Mattel then bought The Learning Company in 1999 for 4.2 billion dollars, a sale the record says netted O'Leary around six million dollars.
The Den era
He joined Dragons' Den on CBC in 2006 as one of five investors and left in 2014, during which the show became one of the most watched in the network's history.
His blunt style set the template for what a television investor sounds like, for better or worse.
The Shark Tank crossover
When the American version launched in 2009, O'Leary joined Shark Tank and stayed, one of two Canadian dragons, alongside Robert Herjavec, who crossed to the ABC show.
So the two shows are not rivals so much as branches of the same tree: the format began in Japan, grew in Britain and Canada, and Shark Tank is its American cousin. We break that lineage down in a separate note.