Mark Cuban: Stop Wasting Time on Investments with Low Returns | E160 - In Search Of Excellence

Episode Transcript
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Mark Cuban (00:00):
There's investing, and then there's Shark Tank

(00:01):
investing. When I'm doing theshow, I'm not just thinking
about how much money can I makefrom a deal. I'm thinking about
what's the return on my time.
Business is the ultimate sport.
You're working 24 by seven, by365, and there's always somebody
there trying to kick your ass.
You know, when I was theyoungest in the room, it was
like, okay, they're not takingme seriously. When I was the
oldest in the room. Okay,they're not taking me this
seriously because I'm either tooyoung or too old or whatever,

(00:23):
but I do the motherfucking work.
YouTube would not exist. Therewould be no reason for YouTube
to exist at all. Again, the samelessons I learned as a 12 year
old that selling wasn't aboutconvincing, it was about
helping.

Randall Kaplan (00:36):
What exactly did you do or say when he fired you?
When he

Mark Cuban (00:39):
fired me? My first thought was he can't do the
deal. Everybody's got somethingthat they're great at. The hard
part is finding it. Randy, Igotta tell you, you crushed it
on preparation. You knew stuffthat I had forgotten. The only
thing I'm gonna tell you is stayaway from Wikipedia. You

My guest today is Mark Cuban. Mark is a serial
entrepreneur, phenomenalinvestor, sports fanatic and
incredibly generousphilanthropist. He is the owner
of the Dallas Mavericks NBAbasketball team. Has been a host
on the amazing TV show SharkTank for the last 12 years, and
is the author of the bestselling book, How to Win at the
sport of business. If I can doit, you can do it. Mark is a

(01:33):
member of the Forbes 400 and hasa reported net worth of $4.3
billion among many otherexciting ventures, Mark launched
his most recent company, theMark Cuban cost plus drug
pharmacy two months ago. Mark,it's an incredible pleasure to
have you on my show. Welcome toIn Search of Excellence. Thanks
for having me. Randy. I alwaysstart my podcast with our
family, because from the momentwe're born, our family help

(01:56):
shape our personalities, ourvalue and the preparation for
our future. You were born inPittsburgh into a Jewish working
class family in the suburb ofMount lamedon. Your dad, Norton,
was an automobile upholsterer,and you describe your mother as
someone who had a different jobor a different career goal every
other week. What kind of valuesdid they instill in you, and
what kind of influence did yourneighborhood have on you, both

(02:17):
growing up and as an adult, you

Mark Cuban (02:19):
know in terms of values, I guess, self reliance,
being able to take care ofyourself, taking responsibility
for your actions, education andtrying to live a better life
than my parents live. At

some point, did they tell you, I want you to be
the best you can be and reachyour highest potential, or did
that come innately to you, no,

Mark Cuban (02:41):
they did. I mean, my dad worked at a company called
Regency products, where they didupholstery on cars, and he would
have me come in there on weekendand sweep the floor, not because
he wanted me to earn the $5 Iearned for the day, but more
because he wanted me to see whatback breaking work was all
about, and how he wanted me tonot like it, you know, and to

(03:02):
want to strive to achieve more.
I want to

talk about your early childhood. Can you tell us
what you were like as a kid?
Were you popular? Were you aleader and outside of business?
What did you do for fun? I

Mark Cuban (03:13):
guess my childhood, childhood had three, three
segments. I was born in a partof Pittsburgh called Squirrel
Hill. We lived there until I wasfive and moved to a sub work
called Scott Township, in anarea called Bird land, because
all the streets were named afterbird and lived there till I was
12, and so that was a completelydifferent neighborhood than
Mount Levitt. And everything wasabout sports. You know, it was

(03:34):
one of the neighborhoods whereyou knew all your neighbors, my
friends, were the guys that evenif they didn't go to the same
school as me. We would playwiffle ball or basketball or
football down at the park thatwas at the bottom of this huge
hill I lived in the middle of.
And some of those guys I'm stillfriends with, one I heard from
just the other day that was kindof all sports driven. There

(03:54):
really wasn't other than myfriend Danny, who's whose dad
was an engineer and who wouldput us in front of a chalkboard
trying to do math questions andrace to answer math questions.
That was one segment. And Dan,my dad, I never forget, took me
out of school I was 12, andsaid, Okay, you're old enough to
be part of this process. We'removing less than a mile away to
Mount Lebanon, because he feltthat it had a better school, and

(04:18):
it did than the high school Iotherwise would have gone to,
and so Mount Lebanon was acompletely different world or
environment. Jefferson juniorhigh to start, and that's where
I made lifelong friends thatwere more geared towards
education. I mean, at Nixonelementary school and John Jews
Junior High in Scott Township, Iwas the only Jewish kid. I was,
you know, I stood out a lot, andpeople didn't understand that.

(04:42):
And then I moved to MountLebanon, and most of my friends
were Jewish. It wasn't a have apredominant Jewish school, but,
you know, the six or seven guyswho to this very day, or my,
some of my best friends wereJewish, and there was just more
of an emphasis on education andthat that created a big change
for me. Let's

talk about the incredible. Entrepreneurial
spirit you showed at a youngage, most of the people around
you thought you'd go to work ina steel mill like many of the
other kids, but your motherwanted you to learn how to
install carpeting, but thatwasn't part of your plan. You
started your first business whenyou were 12 years old, and you
did it in a pretty unique way.
Your dad was playing poker withhis buddies, drinking and
whooping it up, and you wentinto the room, grabbed the donut
and told them You wanted a newpair of expenses. Chuck Taylor

(05:20):
converts basketball shoes. Yourdad said the shoes on your feet
were working fine, and that whenyou got a job, you could buy
whatever you wanted. At thatpoint, one of his buddies who
was drunk, said, Hey, I can getyou a job. I have all these
trash bags. You can sell themdoor to door. And you said,
done. You charged $6 they costyou three so you made $3 per
bunch. And when you were 16, youstarted a stamp company. You
went to stamp shows and tradeshows. You would trade up from

(05:42):
one stamp to the next. You knewwhat you were doing because
you'd stay up until 3am or 4amreading Lynn Stamp News and
Scott stamp journals, and thenhave them all memorized to give
yourself an edge. You also earnmoney by selling baseball cards
and rear coins. When you were16, you took advantage of a
Pittsburgh Post Gazette strikeby driving 130 miles to the
plant in Cleveland, where thenewspapers were printed, you

(06:02):
found a truck coming out of theplant. You convinced the driver
to sell you his papers so hewouldn't have to drive around
and do his rounds. Then youdrove back to Pittsburgh and
sold the papers for five timesthe cost to make money. You also
worked at a grocery store,stocking shelves and at a deli
where you sliced off a piece ofyour finger. You had the
entrepreneur Gene You were bornwith. It. Can you tell us about
the lessons you learned goingdoor to door as a 12 year old

(06:24):
and the importance of hustle andcold calling on our path to
excellence? And can you alsotell us about persistence and
how telling potential garbageback customers that you knew
their daughter helped yousucceed? I

Mark Cuban (06:36):
think what I learned most was how to sell and that
selling wasn't something to beafraid of, because it wasn't
convincing anybody. I mean, youknow, wasn't trying to change
people's minds. It was trying tohelp them. And so when you're,
you know, when you're 12 yearsold, going door to door, you
know, it's, Hi, my name is Mark.
I live down the street. Do youuse garbage bags? It was, you
know, it was just like, hey, for$6 I'll bring you a box of 100

(07:00):
whenever you need them, all yougotta do is call my house and
then I'll bring them down toyou. And it was that easy. And
you know, from there, once I gotthat confidence, it started to
get easy. Whether I was sellingstamps, whether I was selling
magazines, door to door, it'd belike, Hi, my name is Mark. If I
could show you how 75 cents aweek can improve the education

(07:23):
and entertainment of your familyand put your kids in a better
position at school. With 75cents a week be worth it. Things
that I remember to this day anddealing with objections, those
are all things that became corefor me, you know, and really
built my confidence. What about

the comment, I know your daughter,

Unknown (07:43):
remember that one? That part, that one I don't remember.

I think education is one of the most
important ingredients to ourfuture success. You skipped
school your senior year of highschool and enrolled as a full
time student at the Universityof Pittsburgh, selling your
stamp collection to help pay forcollege. After a year there, you
transferred to IndianaUniversity, where you eventually
graduated from the Kelley Schoolof Business with a Bachelor of
Science degree in management.
You had applied to the schoolwithout even visiting the campus
because it had the cheapesttuition of all the business

(08:10):
schools on the top 10 listduring college, you had a
variety of ventures. You gavedisco lessons to sorority girls
for $25 an hour, which youcalled the best job ever, and
which led to you hosting lavishdisco parties at the
Bloomingdale BloomingtonNational Guard Armory. You set
up a chain letter that askedpeople to submit a small amount
of money with the prospect thatthey could make more than $1,000
that venture paid for onesemester of tuition in September

(08:33):
of your senior year, you openeda popular bar called motleys
Pub. Six months later, it wasshut down because pictures from
a wet t shirt contest made it inthe newspaper and a probation
officer recognized a picture ofone of her parolees, who
happened to be a 16 year old onprobation for prostitution. You
said you checked her ID, and itwas good. I remember to this day
doing so. I sold T shirts andcalls. I stuffed envelopes for

(08:56):
three cents each, and like you,I managed to have a lot of fun
at the great University ofMichigan. How important was your
college experience to yourfuture success? And is what you
learn outside of the classroomas important or more important
than what you learned inside ofthe classroom? What

Mark Cuban (09:12):
I learned there, and the impact it had on me, was
unquantifiable. I mean, that'show significant it was. I said
the greatest skill in theclassroom, I learned was
learning how to learn that fromthe time I was a freshman and
what I expected to the time Iwas a senior, so much changed
and my expectations changed. Ijust learned so much, and to
this day, my ability to absorbthings and my excitement to

(09:35):
learn new things emanated fromIndiana. I mean, I can tell you
stories my freshman year, Inever really knew how smart I
was, but I wanted to challengemyself, you know, I went to
class at Pitt, like you said,instead of my senior year of
high school, and when I got toIndiana, this was before
everything was computerized, Idecided to register for an
advance for a graduate level,little, literally, an MBA class

(09:57):
in statistics, K 501, and theylet me in. I was shocked. Fuck.
I'm like, Okay, if I can pass anMBA level statistics class, all
right, I might not be dumb. Andso not only did I pass it, I got
an A in it, not only did I getan A in it, but the professor,
Wayne Winston and I connected 20years later, plus when I saw him
in Indianapolis, when the Mavswere playing the Pacers, and he

(10:19):
came to work for me at themavericks and became one of the
very first, if not the veryfirst, analytics employee for an
MBA team, all because I snuckinto a class at Indiana. But
that led me to think, Okay, Icould do this. I can challenge
myself. So not only did I findmyself being excited to learn,

(10:39):
but I found myself being reallyexcited to be challenged. I was
taking other graduate levelclasses until my junior year,
when one day I'm walking oncampus and the head of the
graduate school that the MBAprogram stopped me on campus and
literally was poking me in thechest, saying, I don't know how
you did it, but you are nolonger in the MBA program. You

(11:00):
can go into the Honors Program,or you can go undergrad, but
you're not an MBA. And I hadover a year my MBA done at that
point. But again, going back toyour question, learning to
challenge myself, not beingafraid of challenges, learning
to get excited about learning.
Were skills that I got in theclassroom and outside the
classroom, you know, and thenjust the social aspect of it,
just learning to network, makingfriends, creating close friends.

(11:23):
Every kid goes through ups anddowns during their period of
college. And having closefriends, you know, Ben and Tim
and Tom guys who are still someof my best friends today, was
also critically important. I

took stat 401, as a freshman two senior level
class, Ed Rothman, who was afixture at Michigan. I thought I
was gonna fail out of the class,but luckily, I also got an A.

Mark Cuban (11:49):
That's the key.
Taking a high level stats classyour freshman year, it

worked. I was very nervous right up until the
end, but, but I did get an A.
You graduated college in 1981and then moved back to
Pittsburgh. You took a job withMellon bank. Back then, a lot of
the smaller regional banks stilldid everything on paper, but
Mellon had a department thatwent in and converted a lot of
them to computerized systems,which is what you worked on. A
lot of your peers were justhappy to have a job, but you
weren't. You want to be moreentrepreneurial, so you took

(12:15):
some initiative. Can you tell usabout the notes you sent to
their CEO, David bars, themagazine story about Social
Security payments, the rookieclub, your newsletter and the
awesome reception you receivedfrom doing all this. Yeah, you
did

Mark Cuban (12:28):
your homework. In my mind, you know, the number one
job of any employee was tomaximize earnings for the
company that you worked forPeriod. End of story that was
non negotiable. So I was readinga copy of venture magazine.
Doesn't even exist anymore. Istill have it in the back in my
big stack of old stuff. Andthere was an article about how
you can cut your costs by doingsome specific things for with

(12:50):
your social security paymentsfor big companies. And so I got
a copy of the magazine, and Isent it dive mark for him, you
know, with a note to him, and hesent me a thank you, and but my
boss did not like that at all.
He thought I was stepping on histoes. But I didn't stop there.
So part of what I did at Mellonbank, and I didn't do a great
job, but part of what I did washelping them convert from paper

(13:13):
based systems to electronic,digital based systems, or as
digital as they were at thetime. And we would go to these
small banks in the middle ofMichigan or West Virginia,
wherever, just small, smallbanks, and convert them. It got
to be very, very tedious. Therewere, there was a lot of tedious
work. So I created this thingcalled the remote micro

(13:35):
newsletter, because micro iseffectively what we did. And it
would just be funny, you know,so and so did such and such and
such and such did so and so. Andthen on top of that, I created
something called the rookieClub, where we would get senior
level executives to meet us at abar and talk to us. And I'm
organizing all these things. Andthen my boss, Ed Whitman, called

(13:55):
me into his office and juststarts screaming at me. You
know, who the hell do you thinkyou are doing all this thing
without going through me andthis and that? That was pretty
much the end of my career atMellon bank. You didn't fire me,
but it was time for me to go.

We're gonna talk about what came next in a
minute, but before we do what'syour advice to the millions of
people who are working in a jobthey don't like their boss and
they're thinking about leaving,should they stay and tough it
out? Or should they leave andrisk that they may not like
their next boss and also riskbecoming a Job Hopper, which may
prevent them from getting theirnext job after that? Well, two

Mark Cuban (14:31):
things, one, always realize you're a free agent.
You're allowed to look for yournext job while you're in your
current job. But moreimportantly, and this
particularly as it applies toyour first job. You know, coming
in college, you paid to learn,but now that you've graduated,
or you're starting your careeror getting your first job,
you're getting paid to learn andtake advantage of the to learn

(14:52):
part of it, because I thinkthat's where people who are in
jobs they don't like, make amistake, they're just so
miserable. They just can't waitto get out and they. Don't
realize that you can learn morefrom the jobs you don't like
than from the jobs you do like.
Learning what not to do is justas critically, as important as
learning what to do,particularly if you have any
aspirations to go intomanagement or to start your own

(15:13):
company. And literally from thatMellon bank experience, from the
jobs that didn't work out forme, the companies that didn't
work out, I learned as much, ifnot more, from the failures of
mine, myself and others as I didfrom the good things that
happened.

I mentor a lot of college students. I have an
interim program 36 kids everysummer. We got about 1000
applications. Now it's sort of athing, and one of the first
things I tell them, stay in yourfirst job for two years no
matter what. It may not be fun.
You may not like your boss. It'swork. You have to learn how to
get along with others andsucceed. There's going to be
very difficult people whereveryou are. I had a scholarship a
student, Kristen muzon, hiKristen, who worked at Price

(15:52):
Waterhouse, and they sent her inthe consulting division. They
sent her to Decatur, Illinois.
She had a boyfriend back in NewYork. She didn't like her boss.
She was miserable. Nothingagainst Decatur, but there's,
there's not a lot to do there.
There's a social life. And Itold her to stick it out. And I
think at the end of the day, shedid. After two years, she went

(16:14):
to the head of the firm and andshe moved and she didn't like
her boss, either, and that was avery tricky thing to go on to
try to figure that out. Yeah,

Mark Cuban (16:26):
of course. But again, you're getting paid to
learn, and if you look at itthat way, look we don't like
every class we took in college,and it may have only been a
semester, but that's, you know,a good four months, or whatever
it is, where you may not behappy, plus all the study and
you're having to do to deal withthis class that you don't like
work, your job is no different.
You know, if you really make aneffort to learn, not just, you

(16:47):
know, I'm an accountant and I'mcounting rolls of carpet for an
audit, but how is the companyrun? How are managers managing
if I don't like my boss, whydon't I like my boss? And is
there a way that I cancommunicate with that boss that
makes me better at communicatingor learn from what they're
doing? So I don't do the samethings when I become a boss.

(17:08):
When you're 22 years old or 23years old, it's hard to have
that perspective. And you know,you're doing it obviously, with
your students, and that's what Itry to convey as well, that, you
know, look at your ultimategoal, and within context of that
ultimate goal, what can youlearn from your current set of
circumstances? You

left melon after about a year and worked for a TV
Repair franchise called tronics2000 but that Job did not work
out either. So you left forDallas on July 7, 1982 you moved
in with five friends in a threebedroom apartment. You slept on
the floor. You had no money, nocar. You did have a towel, but
you had stolen it from a hoteland it had holes in it. And you
landed a job as a bartender at aGreenville Avenue bar called

(17:50):
Elon. You tried to start abusiness selling powdered milk.
It was cheaper by the gallon,and you thought it tasted good
enough, but that didn't work.
While you're working as abartender, an employment agency
put an ad in a newspaper for jobselling software at a store. So
you purchased two pinstripepolyester suits for $99 to get
ready for the interview. Thecompany was called your business
software in the store was thefirst software store in Dallas.

(18:12):
You were 24 years old at thetime. You had zero experience.
You were scared because you hadnever worked with a PC before.
Two guys tag team you during theinterview and asked you a bunch
of questions. You didn't reallyknow the answers to them, but
you finally nailed one that gotyou the job. What was the
question and what are thelessons here and their
importance at the beginning ofsomeone's career and throughout
their entire career? So

Mark Cuban (18:34):
he asked me, what do you do if you don't know the
answer to a question, atechnical question? I was like,
I'll pick up the manual and I'llread the answer, and I'll take
as many hours as it takes tolearn the answer so I have a
solution. And he goes, rightanswer. And he goes, I got one
more question for you. Will younot tell the employment agency
that that put the ad in thepaper that we hired you so we

(18:56):
don't have to pay the fee? And Iwas like, conflicted a little
bit, but I needed the job. I wastired of working at three in the
morning for the bar, so I saidyes, and that's what got me the
job. How

important is that later in your career as
well, always finding solutionsto what you're doing. I have a
lot of people over the yearshave worked for with me and for
some of our portfolio companies.
You give them something, theycome back and say, it's not
possible. It takes two or threeemails to get them to go find
the answer. Be resourceful.
What? What's your advice topeople who may stop it a and you

(19:29):
want them to go to F or G oreven Z before they can figure it
out? First advice

Mark Cuban (19:33):
is, don't apply for a job with me. Um, you know the
reality is, there's an answersomewhere. Or the answer is,
you've done all the work to findout that there is no answer, and
have a great explanation why?
But what's not acceptable is notputting in the effort to try to
find it, and that's what a lotof people do. You know, I say
this all the time. There's somepeople employees, that if you

(19:53):
tell them to do a b and c,they'll do a b and c and not
know the T, E. And f exists. Andthere's others who aren't very
good at details, where if youtell them to do A, B and C, all
they want to do is talk about D,E and F, or G, H and I. And so
you know, it helps to know whattype of employee you are and how
you approach problem solving.

(20:14):
And as an employer or a manager,it helps to know the type of
people that you're dealing withas well. But for me, personally
as an entrepreneur, I mean,knowing how to solve problems
like that, being willing to putin the time to solve problems, I
say, all the time, the one thingin life you can control is your
effort, and being willing to doso is a huge competitive

(20:36):
advantage, because most peopledon't. We're going

to talk about effort a little later in the
broadcast, something I'm veryexcited and a big believer in.
So let's go back to yourbusiness software they hire you.
You're making $18,000 a year aspart of your job. You had to be
at work and sweep the floors andbe there when the store opened
at 930 in the morning. You'rethere for about nine months, and
you're doing well as asalesperson and as a software

(20:59):
consultant. After nine monthsthere, you had a sales prospect
who asked if you could come tohis office at 9am to close the
deal, which created a conflict,because you had opened the store
at that time, you could haverescheduled the appointment, but
you followed your first instinctto close the sale. So you call
one of your co workers to comein and open the store for you.
And you did, in fact, close thedeal. The next day, you came to
work with a $15,000 check inyour hand and your boss, Michael

(21:22):
who Mackey, fired you. Soundslike a wonderful guy. What
exactly did you do or say whenhe fired you? And can you tell
us how you went from not knowinganything about PCs to being a
very successful salespersonshortly after you got the job
and adjusted for the inflationover 31 years, that $15,000 sale
today is the equivalent of$45,000 Not, not a small sale.

Mark Cuban (21:46):
No, not a small sale at all. So, you know, when he
fired me, I didn't expect him tofire me. Obviously. I thought,
Okay, this is good for both ofus, right? He's got a fledgling
software store, and it's a win.
But I also knew I was the onlyone in the store that had any
technology knowledge at all, andit was all self taught. And so
when he fired me, my firstthought was he can't do the

(22:10):
deal, and so I was going to havean opportunity at some point.
The guy's name was Kevin. I'llnever forget to go back to
Kevin, not right off the bat,because I didn't have everything
I needed. I needed this storefor some things to go close that
deal at some point in thefuture. And so I was like, Okay,
I've got the edge here. And so,yeah, to answer your question, I

(22:31):
was surprised, because he neededit. But I'm like, Okay, this is
my chance to go start my owncompany. It was time. I was a
lousy employee. This is myfourth job, effectively, fifth
job, maybe, depending on how youcomp. And it was time to start
my own thing. And I knew at somepoint in the near future, if I
started my own, Kevin was goingto be a customer, so I thought
I'd have a good start. What do

you think the reason was he fired you? It's a
huge sale. It's a new store.
It's a lot of money. It'sprobably more money than that
store made in a month, I wouldguess, month or two,

Mark Cuban (23:03):
and they closed quickly, shortly after. Um, and
the girl, Barbara de pew thatput the floor with me and
cleaned everything up, um endedup working for me at micro
solution. But I think what Ilearned from that, and again,
you you learn as much from thebad companies as the good ones.
I remember I had my true for $99suits, Michael would tell me

(23:23):
that I needed to have bettersuits and to go to this place or
that place. And I'll neverforget him telling me that if I
ever decided that I neededglasses because I was wearing
contacts at the time, that thisplace called peeps was a great
place to buy really nice glasseswhen it came to selling. He was
never like, Okay, let's get outthere and sell. Let's get out

(23:44):
there and sell. It was more, I'mthe CEO. And that was the same
thing that happened at Tronix2000 it was the same thing I'd
seen in other places where therewas a CEO who was more excited
about being the CEO than doingthe things necessary to close
sales. And I learned veryquickly from both of those

(24:04):
companies that no business willever succeed without sales, and
if the CEO wasn't so excitedabout their product and so in
love with their product orservice that they wanted to
learn everything about it andshare it with potential
customers, that it wasn't goingto work. So it was a great
experience for me. You know,that's what led me to be able to
start micro solutions. I

hope you're enjoying this video so far, but
before we jump back in, I wantto know if you've ever thought
about what you need to do toreach a nice level of success in
your life. Over the last 25years, I've been an advisor to
more than 50 companies. I'veinvested nearly 100 including
Google, Lyft and Seagate, and Ialso co founded a company that
today is worth more than $15billion I've been incredibly
blessed in my journey and atthis stage in my life, I want to

(24:47):
give back. I want to share thelessons I've learned so you can
reach incredible success wayfaster than I did in my own
journey. I've learned thathaving the right mentor is a
massive advantage to achievingour goals. I'm hugely passionate
about mentoring others. I'mlooking. For a few hungry
entrepreneurs are excited totake action on their journey to
incredible future success. So ifthat's you, I've got an
opportunity. In the descriptionof this video, there's a link

(25:09):
where you can apply to work withme. All you need to do is answer
a few simple questions, and ifyou're a good fit, my team will
reach out so we can build a gameplan together. All right, now
let's get back to the video. Sowe'll get into that. Now, at
this point, you're 25 years old,you get fired. So what do you
do? You start micro solutionswith the help of your previous
customers from your businesssoftware. Micro solutions was
initially a systems integratorand software reseller, and was

(25:31):
an early proponent of technologysuch as carbon copy, Lotus Notes
and CompuServe, and one of yourbiggest customers was perot
systems. At one point, early on,you had $84,000 in your bank
account, and had a receptioniststeal more than $82,000 from you
by writing forage checks. Butyou persevered, and seven years
after you started the company,it was earning more than $30

(25:51):
million in revenue. And in 1990you sold the company to comp
user for $6 million after taxes,you made approximately $2
million I have a saying thatsometimes our biggest
disappointments lead to our bestopportunities. Can you describe
those seven years building acompany? How hard was it? Can
you tell us what you werethinking after you sold the

(26:13):
company and became a multimillionaire at 32 years old? In
your mind, had you made it? Andwere you saying to yourself,
this is only the beginning onour path to excellence. How
important is it not to rest onour laurels and whatever we're
doing? When I

Mark Cuban (26:26):
first got started, it was more about how long can I
stay in business? I wasn't ableto do a deal with Kevin right
off the bat, so I had to findanother company and realize I'm
broke, right? I don't, you know,I saved a tiny bit, but not
much, and I'm sleeping on thefloor still, and I'm fired. I
remember driving to Galvestonbecause another buddy of mine

(26:46):
had gotten fired at about thesame time, Greg shipper and we
were driving down to Galveston.
And the whole time I had ayellow pad that I still have,
trying to come up with a name,writing my initial documentation
on, you know, you know, once Icame up with micro solutions
because it was a one inch name,right? Micro Computer Solutions.
Micro solution. And, you know,writing out our goal was to

(27:06):
create productivity andprofitability and create
competitive advantages for allof our customers, and then
coming back and saying, Okay,who's going to be my first
customer? And going connectingto a company called
architectural lighting and goingto them and saying, look, the
software that you wanted when Iwas at your business, software
was going to cost me $250 tobuy. And I told you I would sell

(27:29):
it to you for 500 I don't have$250 to buy it, if you'll front
me the 200 to $500 effectively,if it doesn't work, I'll wash
your car, I'll walk your dog. Idon't care what it takes, I'll
do it. And that started my pathwith micro solutions. And I can
remember vividly each and everymonth I'm in business. Two

(27:52):
months I'm in business threemonths being excited because I
had $15,000 in receivables, andI was able to pay myself $1,000
you know, just growing this onestep at a time and then getting
to a customer we talked earlierabout, you know, loving to learn
and paying attention. I thinkthe smartest move I made, I made
two smart moves. I ended uppartnering with a man named

(28:13):
Martin Woodall, who ended upbecoming a very significant
partner of mine. And he had sometech background, right? He had,
he had graduated in in MS, fromWest Virginia University, and so
we connected, because I wastrying to get him to be a
customer, and so he helped fillin the blanks that I didn't have
from a technology perspective.

(28:33):
But he didn't know how to sell,he didn't know how to deal with
customers, he, you know, and hedidn't understand the
applications on micro computers,I was able to continuously
learn. And after I connectedwith Martin, he would talk about
these big systems, the old IBMSystems, and we evolved very
quickly into local areanetworks. Thinking, Okay, we'll

(28:53):
take these PCs and connect themtogether. Seemed to make perfect
sense, but to everybody else,that was a foreign concept, and
that just opened the door for usto just focus and specialize in
local query networks and thenwriting software for locality
networks. And I taught myselfhow to use these database
languages, D, base two andothers, and c plus plus and this
and that over the years, andwent the next seven years

(29:16):
without taking a vacation. I'llnever forget, because my buddies
every Thanksgiving they weregoing to Mexico and tearing it
up and going here and there. Andthe only real week I ever took
took off was the week betweenChristmas Day and New Year's Day
for those seven years. But alongthe way, yeah, I'd get tired,
and yeah, I'd get stressed, butI was just on a mission. I was

(29:39):
loving what I was doing. Becauseevery company that I dealt with,
I did something different andunique for them. You know, when
you talk about stress, youmentioned what happened with
Renee Hardy. It was crazy. Youknow, we were maybe two years in
for us to have $84,000 in thebank was significant, you know,
and we thought we were doingthat. Everything, right? I

(30:00):
thought I took everything Ilearned from business school,
you know, I separated having,you know, who approved the
payables, me, who created thechecks, Martin, who took them to
the bank, Renee. And one day Igot a call from the bank saying,
sir, we just had this woman,Renee Hardy, drive through our
drive through and cash thesechecks where the payee was

(30:24):
whited out and her name waswritten in, I'm like, You didn't
cash them, did you? You just letme know? Well, of course, we
cash them. We're a bank. That'swhat we do. 82,000 of our
$84,000 that was being sent outfor payables was gone. And to
Martin's credit, he did a lot ofthis heavy lifting. He dealt a

(30:44):
lot with our vendors, and so hetalked to each and every one of
them and convinced them that wewere worth it, you know, to
stick with us and to buy us moretime. And it took us a few
years, but we were able to topay them all back, and we just
continued to grow again, thesame lessons I learned as a 12
year old that selling wasn'tabout convincing, it was about

(31:04):
helping and spending nightsprogramming, teaching myself
whatever it took. I meanliterally, I remember writing
software. I get a bucket of riv,it was disgusting now in
hindsight, and start codingwhatever it was that was,
whatever project I was workingon, and look up thinking it was
three or four hours later andit'd be 1820, 24 hours later,

(31:26):
going to bed and dreaming aboutwork, you know, putting
relationships on hold. I wasjust so consumed by it, but not
in a negative way, because Iloved it. I was growing a
business. I was, you know,taking the lead. And it was my
decision making that was gettingthis there it was, you know,
what I thought would work intrialing it, as any entrepreneur

(31:46):
does, and typically havingsuccess. And then when
CompuServe came along andoffered to buy us, it was like,
okay, you know, I busted my assand gave up a lot of time so I
could get back my time. When Isold the company, my goal was to
retire. You know, we sold it for6 million, as you said, a
million went to employees, 2million went to me after taxes,

(32:09):
and the rest went to Martin, mypartner. With that $2 million I
remember hooking up with a guynamed Raleigh Rawls, who worked
for Goldman Sachs, and saying, Iwant you to invest this just
like I was a 65 year old man.
Then I want, I want to be aretiree, because that's what I'm
going to do. I'm going to retireat the time. It was interesting,
because that was 1990 and thatwas right about the time

(32:30):
technology stocks were reallystarting to explode, and because
I was right in the middle ofthis technology boom, local area
networks, Wide Area Networks,multi user software, enterprise
software, and the fact that Iwould literally install this
stuff and write software for it,I knew it cold, and I was
starting to talk my brokerconnected me at Goldman to, you

(32:51):
know, the Rick Charles of theworld, all these big time
analysts who were driving theprice of stocks, and I knew more
about it than they did. And soyou know, they would talk to me
about these stocks, these publiccompanies, I'm like, and my
broker was like, you can'tpretend you're an old man and
just invest in bonds. And youknow, you need to invest in
these things, because, you knowit more than our people do, and

(33:14):
that's what I did. And so overthe next few years, I just
crushed it in the stock market,literally just 80% a year. So
much so that one of the folksthat Raleigh and then Charlie
worked with created a hedge fundthat used my track record, and
within months, I think was innine months, we didn't even have
to raise money. We just sold thewhole concept of the hedge fund

(33:34):
to somebody else and made meeven more money. And with that,
I bought a lifetime pass onAmerican Airlines, party like a
rock star. You know, that wasthe goal, and literally. And it
goes back to my dad, who alwayssaid that, you know, the one
thing in life you can't get backis time. I'd given up a lot of
time seven years without avacation, and it was my turn to
get it back.

Don't rest on your laurels, even when you've
had success. Yeah. And then from

Mark Cuban (33:59):
there, every entrepreneur who's had success
will tell you somebody'squestioned them and you know,
you were lucky. Oh, yeah, Ican't tell you, you know, in the
80s, how many times people talk,Oh, you're so lucky, you know,
you started doing this rightwhen PCs exploded, Oh, you're so
lucky. You started doing thisright when local area networks
and Wide Area Networks exploded,Oh, you're so lucky. You started

(34:22):
doing this right when theinternet started, Oh, you're so
lucky. You started doing all theway through. No entrepreneur
wants to, you know, say, hey,that one deal. And, you know, 20
years ago you want, you want toshow yourself that you do. And
as an entrepreneur, that's justwho I was, you know, I, I took
some time off. But I wasn't justgonna stop there.

You moved to LA to live on the beach. It took
some acting classes andauditions for some some
commercial movie. You landedyour first acting role in a 1994
movie called talking about sex.
Then you're then you're cast inthe role as a nameless villain
in the action movie lost at sea.
And you. Also audition for thefilm Twister, which was produced
by Steven Spielberg and wasreleased in 1996 the film grows

(35:06):
$494 million and you lost out toPhilip Seymour Hoffman, so maybe
he's a little better actor thanyou were. I

Mark Cuban (35:12):
got a call back, which is the big thing for me
back there, but it wasn't likeit was me versus Phillips, and
we were both having reads withSteven Spielberg. No,

all right now.
Now let's talk about BobbyKnight, Isaiah Thomas and
Michael Jordan, and thebeginning of a big one, the big
one for our viewers andlisteners who don't know
Indiana, Indiana basketball wasa huge thing back then. The
legendary coach, Bobby Knightwas the coach all four years,
and in the 19 all four years youwere there. In the 1981 season,
your senior year, Indiana wonthe national championship with
Isaiah Thomas, who played forthe pistons, I'm from Detroit,

(35:42):
as their leader, beating NorthCarolina, who are led by none
other than Michael Jordan.
You're a huge sports fan, andback then, you could only hear
about Indiana basketball gamesafter they were over. So for
four years after you graduatedfrom college, four years after
you graduated, you and yourformer classmate Todd Wagner did
something to try to solve thatproblem. You joined a six year

(36:03):
old company called Audio net,and we're going to talk about
the progress you made thereafter joining the company. In a
minute. Can you tell us what thecompany did, why it appealed to
you, and your deal with CameronJeb when you joined. And can you
also explain what an ISDN lineis and how many of those you had
when you joined? And then I justgot to show you something here.
Mark, were you still wearing thejean jacket back then? Or have

(36:26):
you changed, you know, change upthe wardrobe a little bit. No,
that's still the

Mark Cuban (36:29):
same jean jacket that I still have. Let me
correct Wikipedia there, becausethat's probably something that's
probably from Wikipedia. So in1995 late 94 maybe early 95 Todd
and I got together CaliforniaPizza Kitchen, not far from
here, and we would get togetherall the time. And he said he had
met a guy named Chris J whowanted to put sports on the

(36:50):
beepers that people had, right?
And I'm like, that's not gonnawork, you know, but let me think
about it. So we got backtogether again. I said, Look,
there's, you're right. There'sgot to be a way we can listen to
Indiana basketball using thisnew thing called the internet.
And this was by then, early 1995we told Chris that, look, his
idea is not going to work, butwe really liked the idea, and I
was going to put some money upto explore it, and I was just

(37:12):
going to help them. I was goingto be an advisor, and they were
going to do all the work. It wasobvious very quickly that they
didn't, you know, Chris wasn't aworker, and at that time and
Todd didn't have a technicalbackground. He was the lawyer.
So, you know, I knew networkingand I knew software. So, you
know, I decided to go all in. Soin 1995 Cameron audio was really
gone and done, and we createdsomething called Audio net, and

(37:38):
Chris was part of it, Todd andI, Chris ended up not investing
any money, but we gave him aportion of the company anyways,
and Todd and I split thebalance, and we went to work.
I'll never forget, because westarted with a Packard Bell
computer in the second bedroomin my house, and started
figuring out how we can takeaudio. I figured out to work

(37:58):
with an eight hour VCR and backthere. Can you see it work,
literally from the start ofaudio net. I know you got a
reflection. These are two eighthour VCR tapes from 1995 where
we would go down to a station wegot to work with us, KLI F in
Dallas, and I would connect theeight hour VCR with those tapes
to their board. I would take thetapes. I would go down there,

(38:22):
pick up the tapes at the end ofthe day, take them to the second
bedroom my house. Go throughthis process to put them onto
this site. We call it audio net.
Then I would spend a whole nightgoing to copy, serve forums,
AOL, for the forums, websites,forums, on the early days of the
net and tell people, if you wantto hear about Dallas sports or

(38:44):
Dallas news, come to this sitecalled Audio net, and you had to
go through all these jumpthrough all these hoops. You had
to download a TPI client, youhad to download a player client,
you had to have a modem, you hadto do all these things. And
people did it. You know, wedidn't know what to expect. But
within weeks, we had 1000s ofpeople going to audio net.com

(39:05):
listening to these tape delayed,literally, radio shows that we
had encoded. And the ISDN linethat you're referring to is how
we connected the PC that was inthe second bedroom my house to
the internet so we can move alittle bit faster. So instead of
it being 56k it was 128k

which was the big deal back then. It was not
that you can get back then. It'scrazy to think about three years
later, company changes its nameto broadcast.com at that point,
the company was streaming livebroadcast from 345 radio
stations and 17 TV stations andcable networks, including
producing live coverage of theSuper Bowl and backstage
interviews with the AcademyAwards. It had lost about 12 and

(39:47):
a half million dollars since itwas founded, but had grown to
330 employees. It earned $13.5million for the second quarter
that year, and at that point,you're making $120,000 a year as
its president and. Owned4,724,940 shares, or 27.8% of
the company. And on July 17 thatyear, broadcast.com went public

(40:08):
on NASDAQ with Morgan Stanley asyour lead underwriter. The
shares were priced at $18 andclosed that day at 6275 a share
and nearly 250% gain, giving ita market cap of more than a
billion dollars. At that point,your IPO had the largest first
day jump of any IPO in thehistory of the stock market. And
when the stock closed that day,your stake was worth about $300

(40:30):
million can you describe thefeeling that you had that night
and where you went to celebrate?
And can you tell us the meaningof the tail number of the $40
million Gulf Stream five thatyou bought online shortly after
the IPO, which was then thelargest e commerce transaction
in history.

Mark Cuban (40:46):
Let's start with the second so the tail number is
718, Mike Charlie, MC, MarkCuban, Mike Charlie and 718, is
so that IPO was was set up July17, but actually started trading
on July 18. And so that's the718718, Mike, Charlie was why we
picked that in terms of how Ifelt. I don't really remember.

(41:10):
All I know is the market closedat 430 we went to Harry's. I
think it was like the biggest,hottest bar. And every time we
were watching all the news showsand everything, and every time
they mentioned broadcast.com wedid a shot, and it went downhill
from there, very, very, veryquickly. It was a mess, but it
was, it was amazing. It was themost unsurreal experience ever.

Your dream had come true at that point. It was
a step

Mark Cuban (41:35):
in the right direction, for sure. I think the
step in the right direction,because the reality was, the
stock closed at 6275 but it topticked at like $72 and
literally, I got an email from awoman the next day saying she
had bought at $72 you know, wasshe okay? And I couldn't really

(41:55):
reply other than to say, we'regonna bust our asses to make
sure it's worthwhile to you. Andthat was the message, because we
flew back early the nextmorning, early. I mean, just a
mess, because we had to go towork, because going public. You
know, raising money is never anaccomplishment. It's an
obligation. You know, whoeveryou're raising that money from

(42:17):
didn't give it to you becausethey like you. They give it to
you, because they really wantthe organization, including you,
to succeed. And so it was acelebration of the moment, but
also a realization that we hadto go to work. Let's

talk about what happened after your IPO. And
we'll start with the Victoria'sSecret Fashion Show, which first
aired on TV in 1995 on February3 1999 it went online for the
first time only two months afterVictoria's Secret as a company,
launched an online division theydidn't know what they were
doing. It was promoted heavilyduring the Super Bowl that year
and featured super models likeTyra Banks and Stephanie

(42:50):
Seymour. It aired in 90countries and drew a million and
a half users, which was then arecord, but most people couldn't
see a thing. The picture wasjerky, the audio cut in and out.
The event lasted 21 minutes, anddespite its poor quality and
frustrated viewers, it wasconsidered the first major
successful webcast at scale. Itshowed that webcast could be
successful, and it wasgroundbreaking because it had

(43:10):
brought in a new age of viewing.
Let's think about that for amoment. We take it for granted
today that we can watch anyevent or TV show around the
world on our phone or our watchand perfect clarity. You were
the first company in the worldto broadcast a major event of
that scale online. At thatpoint, you're competing against
Akamai, who actually rescued theVictoria Secret Fashion Show the
following year after its websitecrashed. But going back to the

(43:32):
first show, did you know at thetime how groundbreaking this
really was, and that the futureof the net would never again be
the same? No,

Mark Cuban (43:41):
we just know we were going to have our hands full,
you know, because back then, youknow, cloud computing wasn't the
same. It was just barelyexisting, if at all. And we had
our own server farms, and so wehad to figure out not only a way
to aggregate enough servers, buta way to distribute the
bandwidth so that we couldsupport the number of users, and

(44:02):
it wasn't so much. Thedifficulty we had was that the
software quit wasn't designed tohandle that number of users, and
we created this cascadingproblem. I remember it vividly,
but at the same time we knewthat we were start, that this
was the start of, well, wealready knew that, right? You
know, the Victoria secrets showwas more a question of, where

(44:24):
are we in terms of scaling, itwas never an issue. I mean, we
had, like you said, 400 radiostations, but we had hundreds
more internet radio stations,where we created everything,
where it'd be the middle of Julyand we had Christmas music
playing. We had police scanners,we had fire scanners, anything
that we could put into audio,video. We did. I would go and

(44:46):
buy public domain movies andcreate our own TV stations. You
know, we took an interest inLionsgate. It was called
Trimark, a predecessor ofLionsgate. So we bought 10% of
tri Mark studios to giveourselves a four. Whole
compliment of movies that wecould put up. We did deals with
a variety of different networks,just so we would have content.

(45:08):
And so everything that you seetoday in terms of investing in
content, aggregating content, wewere doing that on a back then.
It was a huge scale. But, youknow, relative today, it's much
smaller. Just trying to proveout the concept, where could we
take it, and what do we have todo to continue to scale it? And
I think, you know, the otherthing that we did while we were

(45:29):
doing it on the entertainmentside, to see, try to do proof of
scale, to see where we couldtake it. In the meantime, you
know, you mentioned, we had $13million in a quarter in sales,
and then 18 million, before wesold, we were doing business
services where we were going tocompanies like Intel, and they
would do a product introductionin five languages to their

(45:50):
entire employee and customerbase around the world. And that
really was the seminal changethat really made us because we
had sources of revenue. Weweren't dependent on
advertising. And having thosemultiple stools and
opportunities really made a hugedifference for us. And even when
we sold, you know, ourcumulative losses were there,

(46:11):
but cash flow break even in ourlast quarter. So we really
geared ourselves not towards,okay, let's just push the
technology to see where we cantake it, but to run it as a real
business, I

want to talk about a few topics post IPO
competition and how quickly itcan crush a company, greed,
protecting your downside andhedging your risk and luck. Two
months after the Victoria SecretFashion Show, you did something
brilliant on April 1, 1999 onlynine months after your IPO,
Yahoo bought broadcast.com for$5.7 billion in Yahoo stock.

(46:43):
You're 41 years old, and as partof the deal, you had what's
known as a lock up. You had tohold your 14 point 6 billion
shares of Yahoo stock for aperiod of six months. Yahoo
stock, at the time, was tradingaround $95 per share during the
first part of the lock up, youbought puts on an index to hedge
your Yahoo shares in case theyfell in price, the stock went
up. So the hedge failed. He lost$20 million on paper, but paper.

(47:06):
But soon after that, you weren'tso mad, because by then you were
working with Goldman Sachs againon something called a collar
trade, who had bought puts at$85 and sold calls at $205 and
when Yahoo share price startedtanking, your puts were worth
$1.4 billion it's considered oneof the most brilliant and best
decisions, business decisions ofall time. Over the next year and

(47:29):
a half, Yahoo stock fell 95% andonly three years after that,
Yahoo shut down broadcast.comcompletely. On the flip side,
Yahoo's purchase ofbroadcast.com is regarded as one
of the worst internetacquisitions of all time. I live
part of the craziness. We filedfor our IPO and Akamai a year
after we incorporated, which issome kind of a record. We went

(47:53):
it is a record a year. We wentpublic on october 29 1999 we had
only $3.2 million in gaprevenues. Our IPO was priced at
$28 a share. The first trade wasat $110 this year, and it closed
that day at $145.19 per share of458% first day gain. Two months
later, on the last trading dayof the year, we had a $35

(48:16):
billion market cap, more thanthe combined value of Chrysler
Ford in general, motors at thetime. I mean, I can't help but
laugh right now, I knew a lot offounders back then who were
young and had huge IPOs, whowere crazy rich on paper but
didn't sell a single share ofstock, guys like Toby link at
eToys, who at one point wasworth $850 million on paper. Why

(48:38):
would you sell when the price ofyour stock kept going up and up
and up. But many of thesecompanies crashed and burned,
and they went BK. You'vedescribed yourself as lucky to
have sold your company and thento also hedge your shares in
Yahoo before the.com bubbleburst. Can you tell us about all
of that? What you were thinkingat the time? How did you have
the maturity to do this? And ona related note, you've also said

(49:01):
that you have to be lucky to bea billionaire. Is that really
true?

Mark Cuban (49:05):
100% true, yeah, because timing, timing related
to opportunity, is everything. Icould do the exact same things,
but if I was a year later andthe stock market had already
cratered, I wouldn't be abillionaire. I'd still be
wealthy, but I wouldn't be atthe level I am today. And it's
interesting. You know, youhaven't been in Akamai, because
we considered Akamai to be ourcompetition. That was it, right?

(49:25):
We, we didn't look at anybodyelse who was streaming, because
it all the streaming partbecame, and we knew would be
become more of a utility. It wasall about the network
underneath. And you guys weredoing distributed and we were
doing home run streaming. And sowe would compete for a lot of
different reasons. So you know,when we went to yet, when we
sold to Yahoo, a big part ofwhat I would sell them on was,

(49:45):
look, we got to compete with ya,with Akamai. You guys have got
the consumer side that allows usto build, to draw an audience,
right, which is huge, whichallows us to compete with cable
television and others. But inorder to fulfill that. We've got
to compete with Akamai. Once thestock cratered, then they just,
you know, rolled up thesidewalks. It was like, just not

(50:08):
going to do it. And people saybuying broadcast was the
mistake, no, the dumbestbusiness mistake ever was
turning their back on theopportunity because we could
some of your market cap wouldhave come to Yahoo's way. You
know, YouTube would not exist.
There would be no reason forYouTube to exist at all if they
would have kept on runningbroadcast.com because user

(50:29):
generated content we did a dealwith, I forget the name of it
now, but the whole thing was, wewould have this, you know,
meeting, this thing calledbreakfast with Dell, where
Michael Dell would do a livestream where he would meet with
customers, and then we'd uploadit and make it available
immediately on the site. Youknow, we'd have people doing
original TV shows and streamingshows 1999 you know, all these

(50:49):
things that didn't becomeprevalent till years later. And
so while I get a lot of crapabout, oh, you know, it's not
there anymore, the reality is itwas the greatest Welsh
opportunity ever. But in termsof my personal decisions, how
much money do you need? That wasthe foundation for the decision
Period. End of story. I had tobe next to my name. I mean, that

(51:12):
was the most insane thing Icould ever possibly imagine,
that I would be a billionaire.
And the idea of thinking, Okay,well, the stock price could go
up and I might get more. Whatwas I going to do with it? You
know, what was the value ofhaving that much more money? I
still had the same house, thesame car, the same friends, the

(51:33):
same everything, and so my goalwas to protect it. And you know,
if you think back to what I saidabout micro solutions, where I
said my initial reaction afterselling my company was to invest
it like an old man and put it ina bond and coupon it. That was
my same attitude. So when wehedged and everything cratered,
that choice actually made memore money, um, because the puts

(51:55):
ended up being worth more thanthe value that was lost in the
calls. And by the way, I got agrief because I remember going
on CNBC even, and saying, youknow, I did this caller. And
they're like, don't you feelsilly now that the price of
Yahoo has gone up from the 95 orwhatever it was to $300 and my
response was, yeah, I feelreally silly on my my, you know,
my g5 flying around everywherein my own jet.

Our stock went from 345 to 49 cents a share. De
listed from NASDAQ. I was verylucky to leave the company right
before we went public, so I wasno longer an insider. Had no
inside information, was able tosell a lot of my stock. I'm
truly grateful, and wasextremely lucky as well.

Mark Cuban (52:36):
I mean, a look right, right there. Perfect
example. Let's talk about shark

tank, which started in 2009 when the
producers asked you to be on theshow in 2011 you're excited
about the opportunity to findunique companies. You're excited
about being able to inspireyoung people to become
entrepreneurs for both financialand moral reasons, which is one
of the goals of my podcast.
During an interview last year,you said that your favorite part
of being on Shark Tank is beingable to meet the young child who

(53:01):
reminds you of yourself, andhearing how you inspire them to
start their own businesses. Youmade a name for yourself for
being very truthful withaspiring entrepreneurs. You're
very quick to tell some of themthat you don't believe they're
going to be able to run abusiness properly or their
products are going to fail. Youmade some great investments on
Shark Tank, including towerpaddle boards, nuts and more and
simple sugars, which was foundedby a 19 year old woman who took

(53:23):
a year off from high school tofocus on our company before
appearing on Shark Tank. But Iwant to talk about episode 12
from the season, which aired onJanuary 21 a 19 year old
teenager named Tanya speakspitcher eyebrow gel company
Tanya speaks organic skincare,to which at that point had
earned $1.4 million in revenuesince she started it. You told

(53:44):
her that skincare wasn't yourspecialty, and you passed on the
deal. And surprisingly, despiteher being incredibly talented
and having all of theserevenues, the four other sharks
also passed on it. And then whathappened is you said, Wait,
wait, wait. And you told herthat you thought someone was
going to make her an offer. Youtold her this wasn't in your
wheelhouse, but your wheelhousewas helping guide amazing
entrepreneurs like her andhelping them deal with the many

(54:05):
legal landmines that come alongwhen you start a company. Then
you also told her, maybe youcouldn't help her with eyebrow
cream, but you could give herguidance that would help her
avoid a lot of the pitfalls andgrowing a company. So you made
her an offer 400,000 for 20% ofthe company, but it came with
two contingencies. You wantedher to meet your 14 year old
daughter Alyssa, Alyssa and your17 year old daughter Alexis,

(54:26):
because you wanted yourdaughters to learn from her. And
you said that maybe she wouldlearn from them. And then you
paused, take your time. And thenyou started to tear up. And I
teared up when I watched it. Itear up now because I am my
kids. Sorry that took me, butthen you guys reached the deal,

(54:49):
400,000 for 15% of the company,and she said, Thank you. I'm
honored to meet your daughters.
I'd really love that she criedand when she did. Had you told
her that she'd be sitting in oneof your chairs and be a shark
one day, which she said was thehighest compliment she had ever
had. Can you tell us about thattouching moment and your
aspirations for your kids, andhow to motivate your kids who

(55:12):
grow up in privilege at

Mark Cuban (55:14):
the time? You know, there's investing and then
there's Shark Tank investing.
When I'm doing the show. I'm notjust thinking about how much
money can I make from a deal.
I'm thinking about what's thereturn of my time based off of
what I think people in theaudience will gain. Because it
is a TV show, and it's going toair over and over and stream for

(55:34):
decades, it's important to mewhere somebody who comes in,
who's young, who represents alot of people who don't have the
same level of opportunity as mykids have or others have, that
we set a good example andinspire people to realize you
don't have to have everything inorder to have a have a chance.
Tanya is a great example ofsomebody who really just worked

(55:58):
hard to create something, and Ithought that was an example that
really was important to people.
Important to people watching.
And as far as my kids, as youknow, it's the scariest thing
ever after their health, they'renot going to go through the same
trials and tribulations thatunites, you know, they're not
going to tell stories aboutsleeping on the floor. They're
not going to tell stories abouthaving credit cards cut up or

(56:19):
having bill collectors chasethem. They're not going to tell
the story of how I got my firstcar in Dallas. It was on the
side of the road, and I couldtell it had been abandoned,
because I'd had bill collectorschasing me. So I knew exactly
what they were doing. And Icalled, there was paperwork on
the car seat, and I called thebank and asked him if I could
take over the payment. They'renot going to experience that,
and it scares the hell out of meand you I tried to, like my

(56:43):
parents did, to get them to takeresponsibility for themselves.
But they're not dumb. You know,they see, they ride on profit.
You know, their friends saystuff they you know, their dad
owns a basketball team. We'renot poor, but I just try to have
honest conversations with them,and whether it was Tanya or I've
done it with other companies ofmine in the past, where, you

(57:07):
know, I try to connect them, andit's not the same, right?
Because they don't have the samewide eyed wonderment that I did
about possibilities, becausethey've seen a lot of those
possibilities in their own livesalready, and it's scary. It's
the most important job I have,you know, and I'm proud of my
kids, and I'm excited for them,and sometimes I just got to get

(57:28):
out of the way, get out of myown head. But, you know, it's,
it's something my wife and Ijust focus on all day, every
day. I

have five kids.
I have two in college,Wisconsin, Cornell senior in
high school, five year old andone and a half year old, and we
live very nicely. It's a lotlike you. I love my kids more
than anything in the world.
There's an I would do. I wouldtake a bullet for my kids, and

(57:57):
it's one of the hardest thingsto do, as you want to coach
them, and it's also hard to keepthem humble. Frankly, we live in
Brentwood. Third of the kids attheir school have private jets.
I grew up without things, and Iwant to make sure they have
things. I get my girls nicepurses from time to time. And
it's, it's hard, and whensomeone does something nice for
my kids, it just, it's soemotional for me, because I

(58:19):
would do whatever I could for mykids, but what was the emotion
that you were feeling? I mean, Iwas tearful Kevin O'Leary, who
was on my show, who's known as ahard ass, and he's not really,
not really, he's not, but youcan see there being tears in his
eyes when the camera cut to him,What Where were you feeling? And
I have goose bumps now thinkingof my own kids. So I got

(58:41):
emotional on your show, and Italked to some of my friends at
the time too, with kids. Theysaid, Holy shit, did you see
Mark Cuban? That's like, Yeah,we were. We had tears too.

Mark Cuban (58:52):
I mean, honestly, I was just thinking, Can I help
this girl? Can I really helpher? Right? I was thinking more
about my responsibility thananything else. It is a
responsibility that to help her.
And, you know, Tanya, for betteror worse, has decided she
doesn't need a lot of help.
She's doing her own thing, andshe had a great airing of the
show, and she's created a ton ofbusiness for herself. So I'm

(59:14):
excited for but that's what Iwas thinking. I was like,
There's something I want fromher, but how much will I really
be able to help her? Because,you know, it was like the going
public thing. It's not anaccomplishment, it's an
obligation. And, you know, itwasn't about the money, it
wasn't about the percentages. Itwas, all right, I don't know
anything about this company orthis product, you know, can I
help her? And, you know, I'vetried so it really, you know,

(59:37):
we'll see where it goes.

Let's talk about loving what you do. You grew up
in Pittsburgh. We're a hugeSteelers fan. You love
basketball. When you boughtbroadcast.com you were Mavericks
season ticket holder on June 4,2000 when you're a month away
from turning 42 years old, youpurchased the majority stake in
the Dallas Mavericks for 280, $5million from Ross Perot, which,
ironically, was one of yourbiggest clients. Pro, pro

(01:00:01):
systems at micro solutions. Inthe 20 years before you bought
the team, the Mavericks had wononly 40% of their games. They
had a playoff record of 22 and27 in the 16 years after you
bought the team, you won 66% ofregular season games and reached
the playoffs in each of thoseseasons, except for one 2011 you
won the NBA championship againstthe Miami Heat that year, 22 of

(01:00:23):
the 30 teams in the NBA werelosing money, and the average
operating income per team was $6million the Mavericks didn't
make a profit until 2013 Butfast forward to 2020, and every
team in the league wasprofitable with an average
operating income of $62 millionyou bought the team for $300
million and according to Forbes,the Mavericks are the ninth most

(01:00:43):
valuable team in the league, andare worth $2.7 billion if you're
doing the math, the Mavs haveincreased the value by $2.4
billion or a 9x which brings youto a compounded IRR of 10.69%
numbers aside, how importanthave the Mavericks been to the
city of Dallas and in all theamazing accomplishments in your
career, where does owning theteam rank for you?

Mark Cuban (01:01:05):
You know, sports is a completely different business.
When Google or Apple has arecord breaking quarter, there
are no parades, you know,they're there. There's nobody
asking for or rarely, or peopleasking for the autographs of you
know, or standing in line to getautographs for people who work
there with sports. I learnedvery early on. I might be in

(01:01:29):
charge of the financials, butMAVs fans around the world truly
own the Mavericks, becausethere's such a personal
connection between the teams weroot for in ourselves. You know,
it connects families, theexperiences we talk about, you
know, of going to a game and whowe were with and the feelings
that we had. That to me, has hasbeen the most rewarding part,

(01:01:53):
for better and worse, becausewhen you're losing, it goes the
exact opposite way, and you getall the grief, or even when you
don't win enough, the Maverickshave not been about economics to
me at all. It's really beenabout the competitive side of
me, wanting to win, wanting towin for maps fans, and just the
challenge. If it was easy,everybody would win a
championship every year, youknow. And there's only a limited

(01:02:15):
number of teams. There's stillteams that have never won one.
And so, you know, it's more theemotional connection to fans. I
think that stands out to me overthis period than anything else.
We've talked

Randall Kaplan (01:02:24):
a lot about your failures and your challenges,
and all of us have them on ourpath to excellence. You talked
about motleys Pub, shutting downat college, melon bank and
quitting tronics, 2000 powderedmilk business when you moved to
Dallas, sleeping on the floor,cut credit cards, the stolen
towel with holes in it, yourlights turned off. Couldn't pay
your electricity bill. And yousaid that you remember waking up

(01:02:47):
some days thinking, oh my god,is this going to happen? And
questioning if you would everachieve success. You were
laughed at some of your failuresand things that you did. I was
too people laughed at me when Ileft a great job working for Eli
Broad at Sun America. I left $2million in in the money stock
options on the table to helpstart a company in Boston that
had no CEO, no fund. They wereat a commute to work every day

(01:03:09):
from Los Angeles without asalary, and they really laughed
when he sold the company for$18,000,000,000.03 months after
I left, which was a full vestingevent for all employees, which
meant, with the takeoverpremium, I lost out on nearly
two and a half million dollars.
I was 30 years old, engaged tobe married and paying for my own
wedding. But through all of ourfailures, you said it doesn't
matter how many times we fail,and that we should not quit,

(01:03:30):
because all it takes is one. Andit's interesting, because our
biggest hits are often the onesthat people thought were the
most likely to fail. Howimportant is experiencing
failure on our path toexcellence. And what advice do
you have for those who havefailed once, twice, or even 10
times and want to give up? Well,it doesn't

matter how many times you fail, you only got to
be right once, right? Theneverybody's going to tell you
how lucky you are. I don't wishfailure on anybody. I don't
think a failure. Failure is anecessity, but it's inevitable
for the most part, right? Unlessyou're really, really fortunate,
and if you're smart, you'regonna learn from it. I mean,
we've talked about a lot ofthose failures, and I learned
from each and every one of them,solid lessons that made me

(01:04:13):
smarter in everything I've donesince then. I hope you're

enjoying this video so far, but before we jump
back in, I want to know ifyou've ever thought about what
you need to do to reach a nicelevel of success in your life.
Over the last 25 years, I'vebeen an advisor to more than 50
companies. I've invested nearly100 including Google, Lyft and
Seagate, and I also co founded acompany that today is worth more
than $15 billion I've beenincredibly blessed in my
journey, and at this stage in mylife, I want to give back, I

(01:04:38):
want to share the lessons I'velearned so you can reach
incredible success way fasterthan I did in my own journey.
I've learned that having theright mentor is a massive
advantage to achieving ourgoals. I'm hugely passionate
about mentoring others. I'mlooking for a few hungry
entrepreneurs who are excited totake action on their journey to
incredible future success. So ifthat's you, I've got an
opportunity in the descriptionof this video, there's a. Think

(01:05:00):
where you can apply to work withme. All you need to do is answer
a few simple questions, and ifyou're a good fit, my team will
reach out so we can build a gameplan together. All right, now
let's get back to the video. Iwant to talk about the famous
author and philosopher AnneRand, who wrote an incredible
book called The Fountainhead.
For those of you who haven'tread it, it's about a young
architect who fights againstconventional standards and
refuses to compromise with anestablishment that's unwilling

(01:05:20):
to accept change and innovation.
You said you've loved the book.
It was incredibly motivating toyou and encourage you to think
as an individual, to take risksand reach your goals and is
partly responsible for both yoursuccesses and failures. You've
given a lot of advice on how toachieve excellence in business,
to focus on sales, to just getthe fuck up off your ass and do

(01:05:41):
it instead of asking for help,and among other things, to be
prepared. When I look at my owncareer and some of the
ingredients of my own success,the most important one is that I
was always, and am always, themost prepared person in the
room. I got my job working forEli Broad by writing a very
unique and detailed letter. Ittook five hours to write, and
then I spent another 40 hours,40 preparing for the interview.

(01:06:04):
That was my goal, to be the mostprepared person in the room he'd
ever met for a job interview,and I succeeded. It's exactly
what he said when I walked outthe door and he hired me six
months later for a job I wascompletely unqualified for.
There's a famous music composerwho once said we should practice
until we can't get it wrong. Howimportant is work ethic and
preparation of all the elementsof success and being the most

(01:06:28):
prepared person in the room. Andcan you tell us how being the
most prepared person in the roomplayed a role in your success? I

mean, it's everything. I've got all these
stupid sayings, but one of themis practice too. You can't get
it wrong. You know, the onething in life you can control.
Is effort. Everybody's got thewill to win, but it's only those
with the will to prepare that dowin. You know, how you do
anything is how you doeverything. These are the things
that I repeat in my own mind allthe time. You know, to keep on,

(01:06:56):
you know, keeping me focused,because there's always somebody
competing with you. Business isthe ultimate sport. You know, in
the NBA, I've said this to ourplayers, we play 48 minutes on
the clock. Then there's anothergame. You know, you practice two
hours, but after the season'sover, you get some time off, and
then you prepare for the nextseason. In business, that's not
the case. You're working 24 byseven by 365, and there's always

(01:07:19):
somebody there trying to kickyour ass. You know, when I was
the youngest in the room, it waslike, okay, they're not taking
me seriously. When I was theoldest in the room, okay,
they're not taking me tooseriously because I'm either too
young or too old or whatever.
But I do the motherfucking workwhatever it takes. And you know,
the interesting thing is thattechnology in particular is kind
of like a ball of yarn. Creatingthe beginning of that ball is

(01:07:39):
really hard, right? Becausethere's nothing you got to use
your finger and up. But once youhave a foundation, just rolling
the yarn around and making itbigger and bigger gets easier
and easier and easier, becauseyou learn how to learn. You
learn how to understand theunderlying principles and how to
pick up on things and where,what's the signal and what's the
noise. But you don't get to thatpoint unless you go the extra

(01:08:03):
mile. You know, another onemight work like someone's
working 24 hours a day to takeit all away from you, because
it's true, you know, not, butnot everybody's cut out to
commit themselves like that. Noteverybody's cut out for what you
have to give up to do it. I wentthrough relationships. I went
that seven years without avacation. I was on a mission,

(01:08:23):
right? I wanted to be in aposition where I could retire. I
wanted to be in a position wheremy time was my own. I wanted to
be in a position by the time Igot married and have kids, I
wouldn't have to worry about allthose things, because I knew
what it could do to arelationship. If you want to be
successful, you have to decidewhat you're willing to do. I'm
not saying one way is right andone way is wrong, right? You

(01:08:45):
know. You have to make your yourchoices on how you want to live
your life. You have to make yourchoices on what's most important
to you. There's nothing wrongwith having a nine to five job.
There's nothing wrong withdriving an Uber or whatever it
may be, because there's otherthings you want to do. You want
to be a composer? You want tojust spend time with your kids?
That's all wonderful, but youget to make that choice. And if
your choice is to be anentrepreneur, if your choice is

(01:09:08):
to make as much money aspossible, if your choice is to
at some point, have enough tocontrol your own time, you have
to make a commitment, because noone's handing you any of that in
your search for excellence,people always ask me, What do I
have to do? You know,everybody's got something that
they're great at. The hard partis finding it, and then when you

(01:09:28):
find it, being honest withyourself to make sure it truly
is something you can be greatat, and then doing it so you're
the best at it, or as close tobeing the best as you can.
Because you don't always have tobe the absolute best. Either one
of us is the absolute best atbusiness, but we're gonna
outwork 99% of the people thatare out there, and that's gonna
put us in a position to havemore success. Not lying to

(01:09:49):
yourself is probably the mostfundamental underpinning of
success that there is, becausewe all do, you know our idea is
the best. I really. I have whatit takes. I'm a winner. I know
I'm a winner. We all arewinners. We all have what it
takes, but unless you find outwhat that one thing is, you can
be great at, or pretty damn goodat, and bust your ass to get

(01:10:11):
there, you're just a statistic.
You're just one more person thatthat tried. And it may you may
not fail, but you know, you maynot be, you may not, you won't
get to where you really want togo unless you're lucky.

Great advice.
Let's talk about your awesomenew company, which is making
huge news. It's called MarkCuban cost plus drug company,
which launched two months ago onJanuary 19. It's an online
pharmacy based in Dallas thatoffers over 100 generic drugs to
treat a variety of illnessesincluding diabetes, asthma and
heart conditions, and itprovides consumers with
incredibly low prices bycharging only a 15% markup in a

(01:10:45):
pharmacist fee. As two examples,you sell a 30 count of Imatinib,
which is used to treat leukemiaand other cancers, for $17.10
while other pharmacies charge$2,502.60 or more than 146 times
what you're charging. You sell a30 day supply of the diabetes
drugs Metformin for $3.90compared to a retail price of

(01:11:09):
$20 or five times more. It'scash only. You don't accept
health insurance and for now,the drugs you're selling are
made by other genericmanufacturers, but you are
currently building your ownmanufacturing facility, which is
about halfway finished throughconstruction. Can you tell us
about this? What motivated youto start it, and what are your
goals with

it? Yeah, I was fortunate in that my partner,
Alex ashmansky, who's a doctor,a radiologist and a
mathematician and just one ofthe smartest people I've ever
met. The guy is incredibly heputs the term rocket scientist,
to shame, came to me with someideas on starting a compounding
pharmacy, and I kind of evolvedit to the idea of going after

(01:11:50):
the the pharmacy benefit managerand cost to patient pharmacy
business. Anybody whounderstands how drugs are priced
in this country, they understandthat it's very convoluted and
upside down in a lot of respectsbecause of the relationships
between manufacturers andpharmacy benefit managers and
insurance companies andhospitals. It's just very

(01:12:13):
incensious and just notnecessarily in the best interest
of patients. And so we startedtalking, it's more than three
years ago now, and startedcreating the cost plus drugs.com
company, and finally got to thepoint where, this past January,
19, we were able to finallyrelease it. The reason was very
simple. I mean, it's just anobvious solution was needed. And

(01:12:36):
the impetus, shockingly enough,was I asked him about Martin
Shkreli and how he was just ableto jack up prices for Daraprim.
And if he could jack him up, whycouldn't we cut them out, right?
And why couldn't we reduce them?
Literally, we looked at buying aone year supply of Daraprim just
to try to put him out ofbusiness, but somebody had
already bought the supply, andyou're not allowed to give drugs

(01:12:57):
away. We decided to take thiscost plus approach, where we
felt like because the drugindustry and the pharmacy side
of it, in particular, when itcame to working with insurance
companies, was so convolutedthat transparency would be the
key to changing the game anddisrupting it, and by Not only

(01:13:17):
being transparent, but having amarkup of only 15% that we could
really take the industry bystorm, and that's exactly what
we've done. How's it going sofar beyond our wildest dreams?
We're already at, you know, sixmonth to 12 month projections
for different KPIs, less than amonth in. It's insane. It

Unknown (01:13:39):
really, I love it.
Congratulations. Yeah. And,

you know, it also goes to understanding business.
You know, we talked aboutpreparation, it took three plus
years to develop therelationship and before we
released, but we knew what ourcore competency was going to be
and will remain to be, andthat's being the lowest cost
provider of drugs Period. End ofstory. If we can't be the low
cost providers, we won't do itand getting it to the point

(01:14:03):
where even if someone hasinsurance that we don't take, we
very often are going to be underthe co pay that they have. And
even better, as we unlike mostcompanies where we get a
reduction in our costs, we'llpass them through immediately.
Yesterday, we announced ourfirst four price cuts, and we've
only been shipping for less thana month, and we hope to do that
every week. And as you know,Randy, when you're at the

(01:14:27):
antithesis of the of a way anentire industry does business,
where your customers, in theirexperiences, have expected price
increase after price increase,or uncertainty it may be cheap
one day and expensive the nextday, and you don't know how it's
in going to impact you. The ideaof not only having the lowest
price to start, but those pricesgoing down and, you know, are

(01:14:48):
adding new drugs, hopefully on amonthly basis, that is is a game
changer. In a lot of respects,

having your name has certainly helped. I mean, I
think I read 100 things online.
It was blasted everywhere. Is onmy apple. News, and when I got
it, I went online right away.
I'm sure you had a massiveamount of traffic that day, and
hopefully, I'm sure the sitedidn't crash. But I sent it to
maybe 20 people I knew. I saidto my entire family, you guys
got to check this thing out. Sonot surprising that you're doing

(01:15:15):
so well. Congratulations onthat. Want to talk about work,
life balance we're gettingtoward the end of the podcast,
you said you didn't take avacation for seven years. You've
got a lot on your plate, themaverick Shark Tank, your
investments, the new onlinepharmacy, your philanthropy,
which we're going to talk aboutnext. You have three kids, many
ultra successful people I knoware workaholics. Are not around
for their kids because they'realways working. What's the right

(01:15:37):
balance for you? And what's youradvice to others on this front,
you know, I had

no balance, had no balance, had no balance. My
balance changed completely, ifyou will. You know, I waited to
get married. I knew I had nobalance. And I knew that if I
tried to have a family while Iwas really pushing the envelope
and trying to make all thesethings happen, that I would
fail. And then, you know, afterbroadcast and after, you know,

(01:16:01):
submitting my financial side ofthings, I was in a position to
be able to do it. And whatreally changes the most in terms
of the balance is now, given theposition I'm in, whether it's
running a company or thefinancial circumstances, people
work to my schedule. You know,when you're up and coming, you
work to anybody's schedule. Youwant me there at 3am I'm there
3am you want me there 9pm I'mthere at 9pm but now, you know,

(01:16:27):
I can say, Okay, let's do thisvia email, because if it's
halftime at a MAVs game, I candeal with it then, or I have a
MAVs game that night, I can't doit. Let's do it the next day.
Now, people work to my schedule,and I'm able to put my family
first and kids first, and andhonestly, the pandemic had
played a big role too, because,you know, it forced us all to
come together and really learnto adjust to each other's

(01:16:50):
schedules even more. You know,because the kids were home, we
were home, my wife and I werehome, and so it cemented that
even further

you have a reputation, by the way I heard
this two years ago, that you canemail you, your email address is
public, and you'd write back. SoI've got this podcast. You're on
the list. I had one with Kevin,which went amazingly well, and I
sent you an email. It took youfour minutes to respond back to
me, saying you'll do it. So I'mgrateful to you on that. And I

(01:17:18):
just want to say it's amazingyou make time for not only
things on your plate, but peopleyou don't know. So thank you for
doing that. Thank you forreaching out. I want to talk
about philanthropy. You've doneso many incredible things to
give back, and there are toomany to name, but I want to talk
about a couple of them and sharethem with our viewers and
listeners. When COVID closedsports stadiums around the
country, you paid the hourlyworkers at American Airlines

(01:17:39):
Arena out of your own pocket fora month when you started the
whole thing, and some othersfollowed you as well. Awesome.
Then there's Delonte West, whoplayed in the NBA 13 years, only
one year for the Mavericks. Hestruggled with bipolar disorder,
drug addiction. Has beenarrested several times. He was
banned from the NBA because ofthe drug use and the arrests,
and a few years after he stoppedplaying, he was homeless, and 18

(01:18:02):
months ago, a Mavericks fan sawand posted a video online of him
panhandling on the side of aroad at a gas station. At that
point, you didn't know what hewas doing. You knew the gas
station. It was a few miles fromyour house. You got in your
Tesla. You raced over, youpicked him up, you paid for a
hotel room for him, and then youtried to help him, since as he
continues to struggle, I mean,that's insane, incredible. He
only played for you for a year,and you did all this. And I

(01:18:24):
don't think there's anotherowner in the NBA or any league
who would have done any of that,and it says tremendous amount
about you and what you're likeas a person. Can you tell us
more about the Fallen Patriotfund, the Mark Cuban Foundation,
and what your goals are forphilanthropy?

Honestly, I don't have specific goals for
philanthropy. I try to beentrepreneurial, because the
challenge with philanthropy iswhen, when you write a check,
you don't really solve aproblem, right? You put a band
aid on it, give a man a fish andeat for a day, Teach a man to
fish, right? I've really evolvedtowards more types of cost plus
type thing, right, where itcould be self sufficient, and

(01:18:58):
that's what I look for for themost part. But if money can help
somebody, it's only money. Youknow, I know how to make money.
I've got more than I can everspend. And if I can help
somebody, and it doesn't alwayswork. Look, delante has been in
and out. He's walked out ofrehab facilities that I've paid
for. I've given him a job, andhe's walked off. And it's been,

(01:19:21):
it's been challenging, to saythe least. It hasn't been the
success story we all hoped itwould be. It's not over, but
it's not where we hoped it wouldbe, whether it's paying for a
transplant or something of Ijust try to either make it so
I'm solving a problemimmediately. The one thing I
don't do is just give to bigorganizations and say, okay, big
organization, I'll show up atyour charity gala that you spent

(01:19:44):
millions of dollars on, and letme write you a big check so you
can put together your nextcharity gala. That just pisses
me off to no end. I really tryto focus where I can have a
direct impact or do somethingthat is self sustaining, so that
it creates a scenario. Areawhere it takes care of itself.
Can

you tell us more about the fall and Patriot fund?
When

we invaded Iraq in 2002 I knew that there would be
soldiers who weren't cominghome, and their families would
be impacted significantly, andso there weren't always programs
to take care of the familiesthat were in need. That's how it
started. And just people youknow, families of of the
military who were hurt or lostin Operation Iraqi Freedom. We

(01:20:27):
we helped cover their bills. Andonce that ended, we expanded
that to first responders,whether it was you know, there
were officers in LA that wereshot point blank in their police
cars and giving them a grant.
Other first responders, whateverit may be, just trying to be
there to help.

Amazing. Before we finish today, I want to go
ahead and ask some very simple,open ended questions. I call
this part of my podcast. Fill inthe blank to excellence. Are you
ready to play? Let's go. When Istarted my career, I wish I had
known not

Unknown (01:20:59):
to drink so much.

The biggest lesson I've learned in my life
is

be nice. I wasn't always nice at the beginning,
and really that probably is, youknow, I should have learned
first. I was one of those guyswho was just like, go, go, go,
go, go, and I didn't have a lotof patience. Were for people I
thought weren't using in mymind, common sense, and that was
a mistake. In hindsight, Ishould have been nice, and I've
learned that since

the one person in the world that I admire the
most is my

dad. Yeah, it's not even close. He almost everything
I learned, I learned from him ishe still

around. We lost him about three years ago. How
proud was he of all yoursuccess? I remember

when I told him that I made $100,000 in a year and he
didn't cut. Couldn't stopcrying, you know, but it still
took until his 70s. He died in92 he worked until his 70s,
despite me trying to get him toquit, and still to the day he
died, he was trying to use hiscredit card, even though I paid

(01:22:01):
for it, his credit card to payfor everything, because that's
what the dad does. My

grandmother is the person I admire the most.
She's 103 years old now, andright before we went public, I
bought a house that was woodframed, and she was in town, and
I took her by the house, it's avery nice house. I'm going to
stay here forever, hopefully.
And she's looking around, shesaid. She said, nothing. And
then we went in the car, andthen we're going to dinner and

(01:22:26):
my acro Integra. And she said,Hey, Randy, that house is kind
of big. Are you sure you canafford it? And it's been great
to have her see my own success,and I've been supporting her
since. So here for you the oneof the highlights of my life. If

(01:22:48):
you could meet one person in theworld, who would it be?

I don't know, um, my daughter's boyfriend right now.

You haven't met him yet. No,

she broke up with one and now Ethan. I haven't.
I've met him briefly, buthaven't really met him. I don't,
I don't know that there's oneperson probably. I mean, I
admire Elon Musk. I talked tohim, but I've never really spent
time with him. So I think Elonwould be fun to spend some time
with.

On a scale of one to 10,000 How great is Luca
doncic? 10,001

he's that good. He's a good kid. He's an amazing
basketball player, and he'sstill learning, and he's still
working. He's so much. He's agood, good kid. Man, I like
Luca,

do you socialize with some of your players? I
know that there's often a toughrelationship. When the Los
Angeles Kings had a differentowner, before Bruce McDowell
bought the team, and once theyhe went to prison, and the team
was owned by someone else. Iknew a lot of players, and I
knew Bruce, and just a wholedifferent thing can be very
corporate, or it can bepersonal.

You know, when I was younger, I was always hanging
out with the guys all the time.
Right now, it's a little bitdifferent because the age gap is
a lot more but yeah, I'll gohang out with them. We went out
the other night, actually. Andso I have no problem, and I
enjoy it. It's fun to spend timewith them. And it's not
business, right? It's justrelationships. And people don't
realize, well, you know, becauseyou just mentioned you dealt
with professional athletes, justregular people, just trying to

(01:24:12):
live a regular life. That justhappened to have an amazing
skill. I

love sports.
It's fun for me to spend time.
We have a place up in Coeurd'Alene, Idaho, and I friends
with the pro golfer, and there'sa bunch of athletes up there. So
we had a hockey player, allstar, and I had the pro golfer,
and the three of us went golf.
Him a horrible golfer, but itwas so fun for them to talk
about their sports, which theyreally knew nothing about. And

(01:24:37):
the question that really searedinto my mind was, at what age
did you know you were betterthan everybody else, and that
all the people you werecompeting with weren't gonna
make it and you were gonna makeit. I mean, just fascinating
stuff. Say, What'd they say?
Hockey player was 12, BobbyRyan, who played 13 seasons,
most recently for the Red Wings.
Crazy thing there. His dad triedto kill his mom when he was 10

(01:25:00):
years old, shot her, got backtogether. They ran from the law.
Bobby lived. That isn't his realname. It's his real name. Now
lived in El Segundo he has ahockey phenom, and they were
just waiting for the marshals tobash down their door one day,
which they did when he was 14years old. Second pick in the
draft, behind Sidney Crosby, acrazy, crazy story. And, yeah, I

(01:25:23):
mean, that was fun for me. Andthe golfer was, I think, 17. He
won the national championship incollege. Good, good, good stuff.
The one question you wish I hadasked you is, oh,

my God, you did a good job. Randy. Um, what can I
play on the piano? Nothingchanges. That changes by David
Bowie and Stairway to Heaven,those are my two songs. Do you

have any last advice for those listening
today? Um, play at

1.5x speed. You'll get it all that way you'll be
able to listen to it all the waythrough, because you asked me
some great questions, and Ireally enjoyed it. Thank

you, Mark, you've been someone I've admired
for a very long time. You'vebeen a phenomenal role model.
I've inspired many millions ofpeople with your success, your
humility and your philanthropy.
I'm very grateful for your timetoday. Thank you so much for
sharing your story with us.

Thanks for having me, Randy, congrats when you
asked me, and the Akamaiconnection, and, you know,
talking about everything but thethings I'm used to talking
about, I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me

on. I appreciate you. If you're comfortable this
and you want to say somethingabout the preparation for my
show, that's going to be mything, being the most prepared
person in the room. If you'renot comfortable, don't say
anything. Oh,

Randy, I gotta tell you, you crushed it on
preparation. You knew stuff thatI had forgotten. The only thing
I'm gonna tell you is stay awayfrom Wikipedia. You

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mark Cuban: Stop Wasting Time on Investments with Low Returns | E160