March 29, 2024 • 2hr 23min
#422 – Mark Cuban: Shark Tank, DEI & Wokeism Debate, Elon Musk, Politics & Drugs
Lex Fridman Podcast
Key Takeaways
- On entrepreneurship: Mark Cuban emphasizes the importance of curiosity, agility, and selling skills for entrepreneurs. He says "Selling is just helping" and advises focusing on how you can help solve problems for customers.
- On business success: Cuban attributes much of his success to voracious reading and learning about different industries. He says "If you're not a voracious consumer of information, then you're not going to be able to keep up."
- On healthcare and Cost Plus Drugs: Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs to bring transparency to drug pricing. He believes lack of transparency in healthcare leads to lack of trust and a broken system.
- On DEI programs: Cuban supports well-implemented DEI initiatives focused on expanding talent pools and supporting employees. He believes many criticisms of DEI are overblown.
- On AI: Cuban is optimistic about AI's potential and believes there will be "millions of models" rather than just a few dominant ones. He supports open sourcing of AI models as a business strategy.
- Advice for young people: "Love your life. Find the things that you can enjoy. Be curious. You don't have to have all the answers." Cuban encourages young people to explore many interests to find what they excel at.
Introduction
Mark Cuban is a billionaire entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team. He is known for his role on the TV show Shark Tank and more recently for founding Cost Plus Drugs to disrupt pharmaceutical pricing. In this wide-ranging conversation with Lex Fridman, Cuban discusses his views on entrepreneurship, business, healthcare, politics, artificial intelligence, and advice for young people.
Topics Discussed
Entrepreneurship and Business Success (11:23)
Cuban emphasizes that great entrepreneurs are curious, agile, and able to sell. On selling, he says: "Selling is just helping. I've always looked at it about putting myself in the shoes of another person and asking a simple question, can I help this person? Can my product help?"
He attributes much of his business success to voracious reading and learning about different industries, allowing him to quickly understand business models and identify opportunities. Cuban states:
"If you're not a voracious consumer of information, then you're not going to be able to keep up and no matter what your sales skills or ability are, they're going to be useless."- Cuban advises entrepreneurs to thoroughly prepare and understand their industry before launching
- He emphasizes the importance of being able to deal with competition
- Cuban believes America's culture of entrepreneurship sets it apart from other countries
Acquiring and Running the Dallas Mavericks (1:03:01)
In 2000, Cuban purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks NBA team for $285 million when it was one of the worst performing franchises. He turned it around by:
- Focusing on player development by hiring individual coaches for each player
- Emphasizing that winning was the goal, not just making money
- Realizing they were in the "experience business" not just the basketball business
- Prioritizing creating a great fan experience in the arena
Cuban explains: "When you think about sporting events that you've been to, you don't remember the score, you don't remember the home runs or the dunks. You remember who you were with and you remember why you went."
Healthcare and Cost Plus Drugs (1:55:53)
Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs to bring transparency to pharmaceutical pricing. He believes the current healthcare system lacks transparency which leads to lack of trust. On what's broken about healthcare, Cuban states:
"There's no transparency. And when lack of transparency leads to lack of trust, and when you can't trust the healthcare system, other than maybe your doctor, that's a broken system."Cost Plus Drugs aims to solve this by:
- Showing customers their exact cost for drugs, including markup and fees
- Working outside the traditional pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) system
- Partnering directly with manufacturers to offer lower prices
Cuban believes most CEOs don't understand the complexities of their company's healthcare coverage and are overpaying as a result. He advocates for companies to have dedicated healthcare experts to optimize their plans.
DEI Programs and Political Debates (1:08:05)
Cuban has engaged in debates on social media about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs. He supports well-implemented DEI initiatives and believes many criticisms are overblown. Cuban defines good DEI as:
- Diversity: Expanding talent pools to include underrepresented groups
- Equity: Putting employees in positions to succeed
- Inclusion: Supporting employees to help them feel comfortable and confident
He argues that poorly implemented DEI programs will naturally be corrected by market forces as companies lose talent. Cuban states:
"I truly believe that there's far more discrimination against people of color than there are people who are white. And I think it's become a straw man that reverse discrimination because of DEI is prevalent or near ubiquitous."Artificial Intelligence (2:11:53)
On artificial intelligence, Cuban is optimistic about its potential and supports open sourcing of AI models as a business strategy. He believes there will be "millions of models" rather than just a few dominant ones. Cuban states:
"I'm not an AI fatalist at all. I'm an AI optimist. But it's not to say that there isn't a lot of scary s**t that can happen with it."He predicts:
- Many companies and institutions will create their own specialized AI models rather than relying on general models
- There will be a proliferation of "mixture of experts" systems combining multiple specialized models
- Open sourcing will become more common as model training becomes more efficient and less expensive
Advice for Young People (2:16:05)
Cuban offers the following advice to young people:
"Love your life. Right. Find the things that you can enjoy. Be curious. You don't have to have all the answers. When you're 12-15, I get emails from 13-15 year old kids. Right. What do I do, what do I do? I feel like I'm being held back. I'm like at 15. You feel like you're being held back, but just be curious because you don't have to have the answers."- Be curious and expose yourself to many different ideas and experiences
- Don't feel pressure to have your life figured out at a young age
- Everyone has something they can be world-class great at - the challenge is finding what that is
- Keep exploring until you find what clicks for you, even if it takes time
Conclusion
Mark Cuban's conversation with Lex Fridman covers a wide range of topics, from entrepreneurship and business to healthcare, politics, and artificial intelligence. Throughout the discussion, Cuban emphasizes the importance of curiosity, continuous learning, and focusing on solving problems for customers. He is optimistic about the future, particularly the potential of younger generations and emerging technologies like AI. Cuban's advice to love life, stay curious, and keep exploring resonates as a hopeful message for aspiring entrepreneurs and young people in general.