(Photo: Disney/Christopher Willard)

Shark Tank will lose one of its sharks at the end of this season, with Mark Cuban having announced that he will leave the reality series at the end of the current 16th season. Will this departure affect the long-running ABC series’ success?  Fellow shark Daymond John is not at all worried about the impact Cuban’s departure.

According to Variety, John said the following:

“The show will be around long after Mark, Daymond, Barbara and all of us. Shark Tank is the American dream, as you see with an Emmy after all these years and new people finding it.

Who cares about the sharks, to tell you the truth. It is really about that mom and pop who have risked every single thing in their life and they need one shot…it’s about that kid, that little dyslexic, brown boy named Daymond John, who never thought he would be anything…who comes up with an idea and says, ‘I’m going to find a community that I love, and I’m going to empower my community.’

There’s one thing in the world that we can all agree upon as Americans: It’s the American dream. When you stand on that carpet, it doesn’t care about your color, your race, your gender, your creed. It cares about if you will wake up before everybody and go to sleep after everybody.”

This season, Daniel Lubetzky has joined the series as a permanent fixture after appearing as a guest shark. Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers CEO Todd Graves also appears as a guest shark.

What do you think? Will Cuban’s departure from the series impact Shark Tank? Will you continue to watch the Friday night series after he leaves?