John was born February 23, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City,[2] but grew up in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens and attended Catholic school for seven years.

[10] When John first had the idea for a clothing company for young men, his mother taught him how to sew and supported him by allowing her house to be taken over to grow the business.

[11] Wool ski hats with their tops tied off with fishing line were popular at the time, and John noticed them being sold for $20, which he considered overpriced.

[10] To make ends meet, John held a full-time job at Red Lobster, working on the FUBU business in between shifts.

[16] In addition to Brown, he recruited longtime friends J. Alexander Martin and Keith Perrin into the business, and began sewing the FUBU logo onto hockey jerseys, sweatshirts, and T-shirts.

[17][18] John related that due to these placements, they were being perceived as a large and visible clothing brand, and stores started requesting their products.

[19] Later, while filming a 30-second advertising spot for The Gap, LL Cool J wore a FUBU hat in the commercial and incorporated the line "for us, by us" in his rapping.

[16][20] In 1994, John and his business partners received $300,000 in retailers' orders at the Las Vegas fashion trade show Magic.

[30] On Season 5 of Shark Tank, John invested in Bubba's-Q Boneless Ribs on and helped grow the company from $154,000 in sales to $16 million in 3 years.

[31] In 2023, the LA Times published an article based on interviews with the Baker family, the owners of Bubba-Q's, where they expressed great dissatisfaction in dealing with John and his investment company.

[32] A permanent restraining order was later issued against the Bakers by federal judge Robert B. Kugler, who found that they had violated a 2019 settlement agreement requiring all parties to work together and not air their disagreements publicly.

In 2020, Daymond John created and launched Black Entrepreneurs Day, an event aimed at promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship and black-owned business.

[16][24][70][71][72] In 2015, President Obama appointed John to the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship initiative to promote underserved entrepreneurs.

[73] John admitted that he was an absentee husband during his first marriage, telling a CNBC reporter that his wife "literally saw me on TV more than she saw me in person".

[80][81] NFTE is a global organization with chapters in 12 countries that teaches the value of entrepreneurship and core competencies to students in low income areas.

[83] On April 22, 2021, after attending the funeral for DMX, John posted a message to Twitter praising Louis Farrakhan, stating that the minister's speech was “powerful” and that his “deep understanding of the Bible and respect for other people’s religions was truly inspiring.”[84] John garnered instant backlash as people brought up Farrakhan's history of anti-Semitism and John immediately apologized and tweeted: "In regards to my tweet regarding DMXs funeral, my comments on Minister Farrakhan were only related to what I just witnessed tonight, unbeknownst to his prior stances...As someone who was fortunate enough to have a step dad of the Jewish faith, I do not condone and never would condone any anti Semitic, prejudice or any remarks of hatred.