Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec talks the big pitch

Robert Herjavec of Shark Tank

Photo: Susan Morse/Healthcare Finance News/HIMSS

LAS VEGAS – HIMSS25 keynote speaker Robert Herjavec is a television icon, best known for his role on ABC’s Shark Tank even when it was known as Dragon’s Den in Canada when it started in 2005.

He’s been on TV for 21 years, including Dancing with the Stars, where he met his wife. What has he learned from celebrity? Do anything, be anything, but “don’t bore people,” he said.

The 62-year-old gave an energetic speech during the session “Healthcare Legacy Data Walks Into the Shark Tank, and Gets a Deal,” moving effortlessly between a Shark Tank deal they were foolish to pass up and his lesser known roles in cybersecurity and AI companies.

Before Shark Tank, Herjavec founded the cybersecurity company Cyderes, which he sold. Thirty percent of the cybersecurity business was in healthcare, he said.

Beyond not being boring, Herjavec has learned that a good deal challenges the status quo, predicts the future, has value creation and tech evolution, has speed and efficiency, and has a business focus.

This also applies to healthcare where, he said, “We are on the verge of a new industrial revolution. Every revolution takes no prisoners.”

The revolution is AI.

“The pace of change is like nothing we’ve seen,” Herjavec said. “Legacy is no guarantee of success.”

This includes the cloud. 

“Legacy cloud data wasn’t designed for the era of AI,” he said. This is because there’s just too much data.

Herjavec’s new venture Zetaris is a company focused on getting data ready for AI so it can be actionable and integrated. 

“We are the next-generation data lake. We built the modern lake house for AI,” he said. “Right now AI is sexy. But I come from a world where you have to justify AI spend.”

And the Shark Tank deal they missed?

It was a pitch from a guy who invented the smart home device called door bot, later called the Ring, which was sold to Amazon for over $1 billion.

A deal they’re glad they passed on? A woman who invented an airtight plastic ball big enough for a person that couldn’t be opened from the inside.

“In 21 years,” Herjavec said, “I’ve learned a thing or two about a great pitch.”

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org