+
upworthy
Heroes

They start by ripping his life's work to shreds. Then the guy with the ponytail steps forward.

This segment of "Shark Tank" will probably give chills.

"Shark Tank" is a hit show on ABC.

Five investors (or "sharks" ... get it?) listen to entrepreneurs who need some cash to grow their business.

If the "shark" likes an idea, they pony up some cash. And in return, they get a piece of the entrepreneur's business.


Most of the time, the people who win the shark's money are the ones willing to:

1. Cut the costs of manufacturing,

2. Outsource their product overseas, or

3. Raise their price or cut corners.

Eat or be eaten. These guys are brutal, especially this dude:

I mean, come on, dude.

But not Barbara. #justsayin

Barbara's cool. She always treats people with respect, she loves helping women, and she watches out for the underdog. (If you're reading this, Barbara, I love you!)

Anyway.

Not long ago, this farmer guy, Johnny Georges, walked off the fields...

...and into the tank.


Johnny invented *THE* why-did-I-not-think-of-that idea of the year: an irrigation "T-Pee" for trees.

It's a simple little plastic teepee-shaped device you place over a tree trunk. It conserves water. Like, A LOT of water. Farmers use about 25,000 gallons of water on each tree during its lifetime. This device reduces that to 800 gallons! BONUS: These plastic guys protect trees from frost — frost that would kill most trees.

PLUS, each tree gets a teepee. Got a lotta trees on your farm? You're gonna need a lotta teepees! Helloooo, Mr. Profit!

Johnny sells his device to farmers and makes about $1 profit.

He knows he can't charge a lot of money because non-gigantor farms (think mom-and-pop) simply can't afford to pay more.

One of the sharks (guess which one) debated with Johnny about his price being too cheap. This dude wanted to triple the price to immediately scale distribution, thus making the product available primarily to giant corporate farms ... leaving family farms in the DUST.


Johnny's product saves water, helps save the earth, and saves money for small farmers. It could change the world and create a new industry.

But Mr. $12 T-Pee sees money. He doesn't see people.

Not Johnny.

Johnny did not budge. He wants to help PEOPLE.

Neither did the shark. He wants to help the bottom line of HUGE corporations.


Johnny grew up working hard. He knows what farmers can afford. And it's not $12 apiece.

I'm not saying that corporations shouldn't be able to buy stuff, or that sales shouldn't earn a reasonable profit. But what's happening here is someone looking at the human bottom line AND the corporate bottom line. Johnny thought it was more important to make a reasonable profit and save TWO precious resources (water AND family farms) rather than throw them both away.

One of the sharks swam in a different direction.

JEALOUS?

Ponytail guy (or American billionaire, John Paul Jones DeJoria) gave him everything he asked for.

What do you think? Would you rather put your money behind a LOT of humans or a handful of corporations?

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less

An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less