E533 Mark Cuban

2h 2m
Mark Cuban is a billionaire entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and media personality. He is best known for his longtime ownership of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, and for his tenure on the popular show “Shark Tank”.
Mark Cuban joins Theo to chat about his recent involvement in Kamala Harris’ campaign for president, why he has issues with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and his advice to young entrepreneurs who want to pursue big ideas of their own.
Mark Cuban: https://www.instagram.com/mcuban
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Runtime: 2h 2m

Transcript

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Today's guest is a business mogul. He's an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 He's launched some of the biggest companies in the world and owned the Dallas Mavericks along the way, helped leading them to great success.

Speaker 2 He just retired from his stint on Shark Tank. And I'm very grateful to get to spend time with him.
Today's guest is Mr. Mark Cuban.

Speaker 2 sit and tell you my stories.

Speaker 2 Shine

Speaker 2 on me,

Speaker 2 and I will find a song where I'll sing it.

Speaker 2 Good to see you today, Mark. Thanks for having me, Theo.
It's a pleasure, man. Thank you so much.
Really, really an honor.

Speaker 3 No, the honor's mine, man. You've been crushing it.

Speaker 2 Oh, thanks. Yeah, yeah.
We've been really fortunate. We've been working really hard over the past two years, been working really hard.
And

Speaker 2 I think luck has kind of met us along the way, you know?

Speaker 3 I'll take luck every time, man. Will you? Oh, hell yeah, right?

Speaker 2 Has luck come in, does that come up to play in your business at your level? Or do you still think there's a level of luck to it? Or what do you kind of?

Speaker 3 So luck is about scale, right? You know, as an entrepreneur, I think, okay, I can start a business. I can make some money.
You know, I can be okay, right?

Speaker 3 But if you want to have a B next to your name, you got to have a lot of motherfucking luck, right?

Speaker 3 so in my case um i started the first streaming company right which would have been cool but it happened right at the time the internet stock market was blowing up if the internet stock market wasn't blowing up at the same time you'd have no idea who i am oh you mean because of so there was a level of luck to it oh yeah so the first streaming company was it's called audio net we started in 1995 when nobody knew what streaming was right we called it um

Speaker 3 internet broadcasting and so we started out a second bedroom my house just was set up just like this and bought myself a PC and connected it, found a local radio station that I could connect everything to, went online, and I would go and just say, okay, if you want to listen to Dallas sports or news from anywhere in the world, come to this website, audionet.com.

Speaker 3 And it just blew up. And then we got a video and changed the name to broadcast.com, went public in 1998.
It was the biggest IPO in the history of the stock market at the time.

Speaker 2 So that's how you started, or this is a loose term. I know you've done other things, but so that's how you started to make some money.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's when i crushed it when you when because that's when the dot-coms like yeah if they

Speaker 3 man it was it was it sandals.com sold for like 20 million yeah no it was insane right it was insane and so but we we were legit we were youtube before youtube right and so we were the biggest by far it wasn't even close and so um you know we were the first to do basketball football baseball you name it first ones to stream anything right and then went public Great.

Speaker 3 And then we sold to Yahoo. And then Yahoo fucked it up.
But that's another story.

Speaker 2 Oh, Yahoo bought a lot of things that they fucked up. Can you say that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, you can say that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They made some poor choices. I was working at Yahoo.
I was working over there doing interviews with folks. And they bought, what was the website they bought that for a crazy amount of money?

Speaker 2 It was blogs. People did blogs on it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, they've bought a bunch, right? And for whatever reason, they could not get it right for anything, man. I mean, they bought us.

Speaker 3 They bought all these different companies that at the time were huge. Yeah, GeoCities.

Speaker 2 that's what it was they bought that before us geo cities was one but there was one that what was the blog website that everybody used it kind of had a basic template to it mash uh

Speaker 2 no um

Speaker 3 tumbler oh tumbler yeah yeah yeah well tumbler was hot then it went porn right um did it go porn i'm glad i got out yeah it was porn for a little while and then um then this dude i know matt bought it right and so now he's just trying to make it work oh trying to refines it yeah yeah because that was a crazy buy that they had i remember we were working there we're like, you're buying a blog like that just felt like you're headed to the past kind of.

Speaker 3 I don't, you know, and now then they were part of Verizon. Then they got bought by Apollo.
I don't know what they're doing now. I mean, I still use Yahoo Finance, right?

Speaker 3 It's not like people don't use it. Yeah.
They just haven't been able to get ahead of the game. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They had some stake in Alibaba too, that company.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and that's where they made some money, right?

Speaker 2 I think that that really kept them kind of like in the vibe kind of of, or just, yeah, it obviously helped their coffers. But yeah, they made some poor choices, I think.

Speaker 2 I mean, hell, they were paying me. So obviously they were.
so they made one smart move right yeah um when were you there i was there like maybe 2010 or something 2012.

Speaker 3 yeah because i'm too close 2000 so you were there like they did 2014 or something i was there actually who was the ceo when you were there do you remember it was a female ceo oh um oh they had just got her in actually yeah what the fuck was her name she was cute actually

Speaker 2 i never got a close-up look at her oh well yeah but i yeah i remember i met her one time and i wish I'd met her more than one time.

Speaker 2 That's all I remember. Marissa Meyer, yeah.
Oh, Marissa Meyer was great, but they had another lady, too, that

Speaker 2 worked kind of over us in the video department.

Speaker 2 All this ditty stuff going on, man. What do you?

Speaker 3 I'm sure glad that I didn't hang out with him, right?

Speaker 2 You never were in his life. I've met him, right?

Speaker 3 But never went out, right?

Speaker 3 And actually, back in 2003, he reached out to me to the Mavs and wanted to design a uniform for us. And I never met him.
We did it all via email.

Speaker 3 And so he had some of his designers get in touch with me and they put together some and it was a cool looking uniform, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 We used it for a couple of years, but that was the extent of my connection to Diddy. I never hung out or did anything.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I hung out enough in LA, but I never really heard stories about the parties or anything like that. That was my scene.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's kind of, yeah, I would just hear stuff sometimes. Like I would hear certain things, but it was never anything like, oh, this is exactly what's going on.
Right. I mean,

Speaker 3 somebody would say something.

Speaker 3 How do you you keep that quiet for so long you know all those videos it's not like people didn't like I don't care if you take people's phones right someone's sneaking in the phone yeah shit like that's happening yeah it's amazing that if they say all the things are true that he was able to just do that for so long you know what what is a level like

Speaker 3 is it scary when people get to a level of wealth that they can kind of have anything like what is some of that see I don't look at it that way right and I'm not saying you do no no I hear what I'm just curious about yeah like what what are the options right right yeah Like, if you're rich as fuck, what can you do?

Speaker 3 And getting away with, right?

Speaker 3 I don't hang out with people like that, right? I always looked at it that like my high school buddies are still my high school buddies, right?

Speaker 3 My, the guys, you know, my rugby teammates in Indiana, my Indiana buddies, those are my friends. The guys, I live six guys in a three-bedroom apartment when I moved to Dallas.

Speaker 3 Those are my friends, right? So it's not like, okay, I'm getting the butlers, I'm getting the chauffeur. Look at me, right? And I came by myself.
I don't give a shit about this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, you see me. Yeah, I was kind of wondering.
I was like, how will he show up? Will a stork drop him off?

Speaker 3 Yeah, right. Like, how's he going to do that? Yeah, but, but that doesn't mean it hasn't crossed my mind, right? Yeah.
It's just like,

Speaker 3 you have to be, in order to do shit like, like Diddy or anybody like that, you have to be so paranoid, right? You have to try to think of every base to cover.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 And, you know, now part of me wishes I had done it because there's too many pictures of me out drunk with my friends and shit like that. Right.
Yeah. But

Speaker 3 I just don't like to live paranoid. Right.
I just, I mean, I love having a lot of money. It's a whole lot better to be rich than it is to be broke.
But I was happy when I was poor.

Speaker 3 I just was happier when I was rich. And so I don't get that whole thing of, you know,

Speaker 3 like just be protective and like play the rich game, right? That's just not my style. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's kind of it.
I think play the rich game. Like, but do you like.

Speaker 2 Do you see people like, do you ever like, because that's the thing, like people get so much money and then they get power too, or some of them get one or the other maybe both but then like how does that infect people?

Speaker 2 Do you see that that could that that infects some people have you ever witnessed it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, oh for sure, right? So like people who think because they're rich they're smarter right that they have more privilege right they get away with whatever they want.

Speaker 3 Yeah, particularly in business, right? So if you talk to somebody that may be richer than me, right, who will say shit that's just crazy, right?

Speaker 3 And think, okay, because I said it, that's what's up, right? That that's, that's, it's right, right.

Speaker 3 Or more likely, though, in my experiences, like i'll get invited to these um parties right that are really nice house and stuff right right but there'll be like

Speaker 3 50 servants right five people to answer the door six people that just specialize in toast right just ridiculous right and all over i'm like how do you live like this you know because it's bad enough like i have too big a house um and so you have to have people there to clean it and stuff like that and there's no privacy just with that and there's people that'll have like 10 people in the house at all times yeah And

Speaker 3 I don't see how they live. Right.
So for some people, maybe it's like showing off. To me, it's just like, why would you live that way? Right.

Speaker 3 I'm happy to have all this money because I can live the way I want as opposed to live the way somebody thinks I should.

Speaker 3 And I just get the sense, to your point, that some people get to that level and it's like, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do, right? I'm supposed to have this type of car.

Speaker 3 I'm supposed to have this many people working for me at the house. I'm supposed to have this type of porcelain, you know, shiny or whatever.

Speaker 2 Old toilets.

Speaker 3 Yeah, whatever that is, right? But I am going to say, one of the things I got, I got a heated toilet seat. Yeah.
Best thing ever. Really? You never had one?

Speaker 2 Dude, I remember when I first got a clean lady to come once a week, I helped her like the first month.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You got to get a heated toilet seat.

Speaker 2 That's like, bro, if I, if my, yeah, I don't want my butt to get used to it too many fancy toilets.

Speaker 3 I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you, right? That's the one, huh? That's almost a magic.

Speaker 3 Because I go from, you know, when you travel, right, you leave home and you're comfortable yeah and i went where i'm staying now right no heated toilets first thing i noticed you sit down in the morning and you're like

Speaker 3 You're like, this could be better. This could be better, right? I'm paying all this for this room and my butt's cold.

Speaker 2 Oh, dude, I remember the first night I stayed in a hotel room and it was like $600 or something. And I was afraid to even go to sleep.
I was like, if I sleep, I'm wasting like $240, dude.

Speaker 3 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2 So I just kept staying up as much as I could. It's, I still spent a little money, wasted some of the money sleeping, but it was nice over there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just, I think it's interesting when people get to level, like, you would see it sometimes with the Romans or something.

Speaker 2 I don't know, you would see it, but you would hear about it with the Romans where like they got to levels of wealth and power that they started, that it veers into like a lot of sexual, like, I don't know if proclivities is the word.

Speaker 2 Is that a word?

Speaker 3 Yeah, like what was it? What does that mean? Proclivities. Yeah, no, you got it.
Right. So, like, Caligula, right? I saw the movie Caligula.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that was the movie where there was.

Speaker 3 Yeah, with all the sex and everything. I hadn't seen it.
Everybody was your concubine, male, women, doesn't matter, right? Everybody was just fucking everything because they could.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's something.

Speaker 3 Yeah, my wife's not going for that shit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 There weren't a lot of,

Speaker 2 once you put a wife in there, things.

Speaker 3 It's over, yeah.

Speaker 2 Proclivities, a tendency to choose or do something regularly. A tendency to choose or do something regularly.
An inclination of predisposition towards a particular thing.

Speaker 2 So, oh, so it might activate proclivities in you for something for them.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, like with the Romans, yeah, their proclivities were to fuck around and have fun, right?

Speaker 2 And it would turn, I think, but a lot of people, they do so much like straight activity, then it gets into gay, or you know what I'm saying? Like, the spec, oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 And I don't know what I'm saying either, but I think that's something.

Speaker 2 I wonder, that's just what I'm asking, I guess. Do you like, I wonder if that's something that happens when people get so much money and power that they're just their band or their

Speaker 2 what they just wanted, they've already had as much of like regular sex I wonder if it starts to build on like what can I do next right what can I do what can I get yes, right?

Speaker 2 What can I get what else is possible

Speaker 2 like not so much with sex right because you're gonna get fucked over by somebody at some point right well can you imagine having to keep all of the like trying to just even even if you ever like sin a like I've been in a really I've cheated in relationships.

Speaker 2 That's hard enough, you know, just knowing like what's next, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or just knowing like, I have to make sure we never go in this area. Or what if this girl, girl, like that one thing alone, I can't imagine the level of like paranoia.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you just, I mean, is it worth it? Yeah. But I mean, look, I'm not going to say that forget not sex necessarily, but just like going out and trying new things, right?

Speaker 3 Like I bought a plane, right? I mean, because it's like that to me was the coolest thing after toilet seats, right? To like being able to just pop on a plane, right? Oh,

Speaker 3 when I sold my first company, I bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines.

Speaker 3 So literally, I was 29 and I was like, I had this card where I could just go to any airport that had American Airlines, just show up, me and somebody else, and wherever they were flying, they had to put me on a plane.

Speaker 3 Really? It was insane. Yeah.
So if that's like proclivities to go try different stuff, that's your version. Yeah, that's me, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because look, I mean, I'm the luckiest motherfucker in the world and I don't want to let it pass, right? You know, I want to take advantage of the time I got, but more now, it's more family, right?

Speaker 3 As I've gotten older, my kids have gotten older. It's more like my kids are 15, 18, and 21.
And so it's like, let's spend more time with them because that's the most valuable thing to me.

Speaker 3 But when I was younger, before I got married, it was like, let's go, go, go, go, go, right. Travel, party, let's see who could throw the biggest parties, right?

Speaker 3 Who can buy the biggest bottle of champagne, you know, just rent a club, who can run up the biggest bill, right? Yeah, I was doing that shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but yeah, I think, I think that that's what I think. Some people like it, you get so, like, some people get so powerful or like there's a lot of gay folks out there.

Speaker 2 I think that they're, they only veer into that or change, get into different sexual, like

Speaker 2 things that are outside of what would be normal for them, maybe, that because they get so much power, you know? Like the Romans did it. Like, you know, they say that they did it.

Speaker 2 Or there's people like financial gays, power gays.

Speaker 3 There's like. I haven't heard that before.
Oh, really? No, financial gays and power gays. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 They get so rich they can afford to just be gay.

Speaker 3 Like everything they want. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or like blind gays.

Speaker 3 there's even

Speaker 2 do you there's um bring that people that are blind they don't care as much if some if gay or straight leaves their eyes of one guy one guy walk up to me sometimes goes i want to suck your addict this is years ago

Speaker 3 i go no he goes look let me just tell you something i'm like what he goes you close your eyes it all feels the same

Speaker 2 this is an 80s thing right yeah for sure oh dude i'm not gay but i'll hold it in my mouth till a gay guy gets gets there.

Speaker 2 That's something that you would hear sometimes at church.

Speaker 2 But no, but I have friends that are blind, and they've told me that they lose their sense of like some of their sense of straightness dissolves. No, I can see that, right?

Speaker 3 It's not as important. Yeah, because you can't see one way or the other.

Speaker 2 That's why I think there's a level of, which is kind of fascinating to me that there's different things that there's people that are gay and people that are bi and people that

Speaker 2 that's their, that's who they are. But then there's some people that.

Speaker 3 Well, I got a question for you. Yeah.
I listened to your President Trump interview. Yeah.
Why don't you talk about this shit with him?

Speaker 3 Well, I don't think,

Speaker 3 I think it was hard to talk about. Oh, Bernie Sanders.
I could have.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but the Romans were gay, right?

Speaker 3 I don't know. Well, I was just, because

Speaker 2 I probably should have asked him if people get so powerful, do they then, yeah, just because at that point, anything's an option, you know? That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 2 I think there's things that lead people like.

Speaker 3 Like, if you want to push limits, right?

Speaker 2 Pushing limits. That's what I mean.

Speaker 3 If you think money can buy you anything, right? And you want to push the limits and think, okay, I got money that gives me power so I can do whatever I want. That's just going to backfire so hard.

Speaker 3 Because if you're not like real,

Speaker 3 the people that are, you know, you're messing with,

Speaker 3 they ain't going to be real either. And it's just going to be a disaster.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about with the Diddy thing. I think it's just like...

Speaker 2 at a level of that you can have anything that you get this power. It's just kind of, I mean, it's sad and it's scary to see, you know, I think that's some of the craziest.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you kind of wonder, like, when did it click? When did it like fall over the cliff, right? When it went from, okay, let's hang and have some fun, have a good party to when it's

Speaker 3 like weird. Yeah, like I'm taking videos of everybody and this and that.
Um, yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you think there'll be other people that will come out about this, or do you think a lot of that's like myth, like internet mythology?

Speaker 3 I have no idea. Yeah, I really don't.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, yeah, sorry, it's just like something that's been on kind of the topic of news.

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure. No, it's an interesting subject, right? Yeah.
Yeah, because you wonder, like, and I wonder, because I mean, I've met the guy and I've seen him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I met him one time too.

Speaker 3 But it's just like,

Speaker 3 how does it get that far yeah you know and and and that kind of stuff's addictive too though once you do one crazy thing then that becomes an especially if you're trying to up yourself right you know because I mean you've gone out drinking I've gone out drinking with buddies right I'll have another shot right have another have another have another and that's what guys do right but if it goes to the wrong direction it could backfire and like it has and the paranoia of having to keep every

Speaker 3 oh that would be a nightmare man i'm i feel lucky i'm not living that way yeah but you know to me like the telltale sign is he fucking hurt people, right? He hit women, right?

Speaker 3 He dragged that one lady down the hall.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's obviously he's fucked up somewhere, right? I mean, it's one thing to want to party, right? It's another thing to like, okay, I'm throwing a big party, right?

Speaker 3 But it's a whole nother thing to physically abuse people. That's just like, yeah, that shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like, how do you not have your own awareness at that point? But then I think things get, you know, when you get power and you get that much ability,

Speaker 2 your own sense of self can probably get skewed pretty easy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, something's fucked up, obviously. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What are some of the side effects of B that people don't see of being very wealthy? Like, are there some negative things about it? I mean, sorry, it's hard to even.

Speaker 3 Yeah, nothing that I can tell, right?

Speaker 3 You look so happy, it's hard for me to even. No, I mean, the side effects, people sue you.
Okay. Because you're the deep pockets.

Speaker 2 That's a good point, man. I'm friends with John Liatelle, Jimmy John.
He had the Jimmy John sandwich company.

Speaker 2 And he said he uh one of the reasons that i he sold the company was because he spent most of his time thinning off lawsuits and he wasn't even able to be like yeah you i mean like i've been sued

Speaker 3 five times my whole life right and

Speaker 3 four of them were because someone's just trying to get money wow

Speaker 3 that's it you know and they'll like name multiple people in the lawsuits and they'll let the other people off the hook, right?

Speaker 3 They won't let me off the hook because I'm the deep pockets.

Speaker 2 So that's kind of a bummer then. I bet you have to be a little bit more cautious about things then.
Yeah, for sure. So that's one thing.

Speaker 2 So one thing people don't realize, you probably have to be extremely cautious.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And then for your kids, right? Because

Speaker 3 it's not their life, right? There's just, you know, they, they inherited us, right?

Speaker 3 And I mean, it's not necessarily bad, but it's not necessarily easy either, right?

Speaker 3 To, you know, have somebody who's, you know, well known as your dad to have everybody know you may not be rich yet, but you're going to be, right?

Speaker 3 You know, and so I know that puts a lot of pressure on my kids. And so we have conversations.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But at least you're able to communicate with them about that and have them just be

Speaker 3 told all my kids, it's like, look, you fuck up, your friends fuck up, your friends just fucked up and their parents get mad. You fuck up, it's on the front page of the paper because you're my kid.

Speaker 3 So you've got to be a little bit extra careful.

Speaker 2 Is it hard to be

Speaker 2 like, you know, you're a celebrity and, you know, and you may not think of yourself in that way, or maybe you do, I don't know. But no matter what, if you're a recognizable person,

Speaker 2 was it ever weird with your kids where you felt like

Speaker 2 my kids are never going to feel like I'm theirs because I'm so, because I'm also in a way belonging to other people?

Speaker 3 Yeah, all the time. Man, that's all the time.
Because there's times, like my son told me the other day, I'm like, okay, I'll go out and get, no, dad, when you're there, everything changes.

Speaker 3 I just wanted to be normal. Yeah.
Right. Which breaks my heart, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah,

Speaker 3 but I understand too, right? I understand. Right.

Speaker 3 And it happens with all my kids, you know, where it's just like, there's a time for dad to be there and there's a time we don't want dad there, not because we don't want dad there, just because of the attention he's going to pull.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So that's another side effect of some things that people don't see.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm just curious about it.

Speaker 2 We were trying to get this therapist who works mostly with really wealthy people on to talk to learn more about that because like when I was growing up, I always looked at wealthy people like, fuck them, you know, let's bomb them.

Speaker 2 Let's bomb them.

Speaker 3 Okay. We didn't have any bombs.
We didn't have any bombs, but, you know, we would. Let's bomb them.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Look, we were in the shit. We had to have a plan.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. We had no strategy, but we just

Speaker 2 keep playing video games.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but in the back of your mind, you're playing TTA.

Speaker 2 But we had like, yeah, but

Speaker 2 it almost gave you an enemy when you were growing up poor. It gave you this like...
Not an enemy, but it gave you like a,

Speaker 3 yeah, kind of what you're doing. No, I can relate, right? It's not like my family had anything.

Speaker 3 my dad did upholstery on cars neither one went to college etc but um no i remember vividly like not knowing how i was going to be able to pay for school because i had to pay for my own school and listening on the radio

Speaker 3 this sounds so crazy listening on the radio about how these prisoners were going to get um all the college education they needed right and i called into the radio station i'm like i'm 16.

Speaker 3 i don't have any idea how i'm going to pay for college and they're paying for prisoners that's just wrong

Speaker 3 yeah you're like so now i got to commit a crime Yeah, right? To go, yeah, put me in jail, right?

Speaker 3 That's a whole nother conversation.

Speaker 2 What is something that you admire about each one of your children?

Speaker 3 Oh, there's so much. There's so much.
Yeah, they're different too, right? But as they've gotten older and, you know, becoming real people now and teenagers,

Speaker 3 they're smart. They're caring.
They're funny.

Speaker 3 They're ambitious in their own way for different things.

Speaker 3 You know, the hard part about raising three three teenagers is that they do all they can to ignore us. You know, it's a good point, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, just like, I mean, our family is no different than any other parents raising three teenagers, basically, right?

Speaker 3 Because those kids want to have their own identity, they want to become themselves and find out who they are.

Speaker 3 And, you know, we're trying not to be those hover parents, right, that are just like, and give them some freedom.

Speaker 3 I'm like,

Speaker 3 I'm like, I'll go, I'll, no, you curfew is this, you know, told him what time. He goes, he texts me back, let me breathe, dad, let me breathe.

Speaker 3 I'm dying, right? Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Like he's George Floyd or something.

Speaker 3 You know, no, not that bad, right? But just like

Speaker 3 kids talk, right? Right, right. Oh, yeah.
Let me breathe, dad.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because I always give him talk, you'd give him shit about like Gen Alpha, like

Speaker 3 talking vernacular, right?

Speaker 3 You don't even know what's going on. Right, Sigma,

Speaker 3 right, sauce, mid.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they sound like

Speaker 2 Peyton Manning trying to make audibles at the lowest.

Speaker 3 Right, right, right, right. Omaha, Omaha, right.

Speaker 2 Sigma. It really is funny.
I'll text my nephew, and I don't even know what he's saying at the time.

Speaker 3 Oh, it's funny as hell, man. And I'll start trying to talk that way just to fuck with him, right? And he's like, shut up, dad.
Or he just hangs up on me.

Speaker 2 You try to lean into that.

Speaker 2 Is there anything that you had before you

Speaker 2 were wealthy that you wish you could have back? Privacy. Yeah?

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 i got none yeah i mean you know now too right yeah there's times like yesterday i was driving somewhere and i wanted to get out and walk it's like a cool street in town and i was like man i know if i get out and walk it'll be fine but i just know that i will meet a bunch of people and then it's like um it'll start to make me nervous or uncomfortable a little because you don't know where it goes yeah yeah you're just like by so i think yeah sometimes stuff like that isn't it i guess that's the biggest thing yeah because i like i was walking in nashville yesterday isn't that song right um walking in memphis or members thank god it's yeah yeah Nashville's better.

Speaker 3 I think so, too. Memphis is good.
But it's all right. Nashville's better.
But I was just walking down the street and I'm hearing, you know, it was dark, right? And I'm here, Cube in, Cube in.

Speaker 3 I just keep on walking, right? It's just like no privacy whatsoever. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But, you know, it could be worse.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, no, there's, yeah, I'm not complaining.
I'm just curious if they're like, what, like, what's one of the biggest things?

Speaker 2 Let me think about where we're at right now. So we've talked about some of how you got started.

Speaker 3 This is some fun. This is not like any other interview I've done.
So I'm loving it. No, man, because you're like all over shit, whatever's, you know, stream of consciousness, which is cool, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And this is a conversation, too.
And I think I like that about you. You make this feel like a conversation.
So thanks. Yeah, why not? Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 How do you know like a good business idea when you hear it now? And has that refined over the years from what you used to think might have been a good business idea?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, like, when you're just getting started, sometimes what you don't know is good, right? Because it doesn't hold you back.

Speaker 3 So now, because I've been doing it, I've started so many businesses, invested in so many, like I know what not to do, but that sometimes keeps me from investing in people who probably have the biggest upside, right?

Speaker 3 Because, you know, when I was getting started, I didn't know fuck, right? So it was just like, you just got to run through walls type attitude, right?

Speaker 3 Founder mode. And now like investing, I kind of look for that, but I'm more

Speaker 3 conservative in how I invest. Right.
Because,

Speaker 3 you know, My next dollar isn't going to change my life. And so it's more like, okay, just competition.
Can I get it right? Or can I help these people? Or can I help them grow this company?

Speaker 3 Like Shark Tank, right? It's just like, not all those companies are going to be big, but if I can help them turn, you know, reach their personal goals, that's a win. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. When it comes to Shark Tank, are you going to miss doing it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll miss it some, right? But again, it goes back to my kids. Like we shoot two weeks in June, two weeks in September, just finished, right? My last run.

Speaker 3 And that's right when my kids are getting out of school, right? And right when they're going back to school and their birthdays, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 So like I missed my son's birthday for like the last five years. And like, that's not cool.
Yeah. You know, and so now, you know, and plus now, like as teenagers, um, they set the schedule.

Speaker 3 We don't, right? Used to be my wife and I'd be like, okay, we're going here, here, here, when dad's done with Shark Tank. Now they're like, no, like my daughter, you know, is a rower.

Speaker 3 She's going to rowing camp, right? My oldest daughter's going, you know, on an internship, right? My youngest son is going to basketball camp, right? And so like, they're setting the schedule.

Speaker 3 And I wanted to be, I have to be available. I can't make them be available.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a good point, huh? Yeah, because when you're, they're a little younger, younger, you kind of get to set the standard.

Speaker 3 You control everything, right? They're just little plebes, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And now, yeah, now they're the ones that really get to choose what's going on.

Speaker 2 How would you rank, rate the sharks out there? Put the sharks in order for you.

Speaker 3 Oh, you put me in a bad spot, huh? They're all tied for last, right? They're all tied for last. No, it's fun, right? I mean, all of them have their own thing.

Speaker 3 Like, Barbara's probably my favorite simply because she can tell what a person's about. Like, she'll just say to somebody, you're lying, right? Or you're dishonest.
I don't trust you.

Speaker 3 And she'll be right, you know, and she doesn't, can't do math. Like, Mark, what's eight times eight? And I'll have to tell her, right? But she has great people skills.
You know, Kevin's Kevin.

Speaker 3 He's kind of the bad guy of the group. Robert, you know, is into pets and kids and stuff like that.
Lori is into consumer products group. Damon is the people shark, right?

Speaker 3 He's trying to help, you know, smaller businesses grow.

Speaker 3 And then me, right? And I just try to fuck with all of them and just have fun.

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Speaker 2 do all that for you. When it comes to business, how do you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wonder if I, I'm trying to think if I would have had an idea on Shark Tank, what I would have taken in there.

Speaker 3 Well, what made you decide to get into the podcasting role?

Speaker 2 I went on Joe Rogan. Well, I had done some podcasting, and one day I went on Joe Rogan's show, and

Speaker 2 on his, we just talked more as a long talk.

Speaker 2 And I was like,

Speaker 2 oh, maybe I could just do it by myself. And so then I, I think I always wanted to have my own voice.
And so then I just started in my kitchen.

Speaker 2 And I say that a lot, but I literally took my kitchen, my dinner table and just made it where the studio was. and that became the studio.

Speaker 2 So then I have to eat in the living room and stuff, but it was still like that's cool. Yeah, it was cool.
And then,

Speaker 2 yeah, I think having my own voice, like, I always felt like I didn't have a voice, I think, when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 And so, but what, so, but then there's a business to it, right? So, oh, well, then the business.

Speaker 2 How did you deal with it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, how did you deal with the business side, right?

Speaker 2 Well, one, one day, a guy who sold pizzas in Santa Monica, my friend Thomas, he

Speaker 2 said, he emailed me.

Speaker 2 He wasn't a friend at the time he emailed me and he said hey man I want to start just a cold email yep I want to that's cool I want to give you like $500 a month for advertisement and you need to get a studio and I was like well I want to keep that 500 bucks I don't want a studio that's cool

Speaker 2 yeah but then he's like no you don't see it he said if you can do this next step

Speaker 2 and use that 500 bucks to get your studio, then you're, it's going to do better.

Speaker 2 And that was something that's really been a blessing because I don't, my mindset was just different. You know, I had more of a scarcity mindset.

Speaker 3 Right, right, because you needed the $500, right?

Speaker 2 As opposed to growing, I would rather have it in my bank account.

Speaker 3 Yeah, then use it as an investment.

Speaker 2 Yes, and use it as an investment. And then once we did the first studio, and then that kind of evolved from there.

Speaker 3 And you just kept on growing it on your own, or did you bring in people to do the sales?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we had an advertising company that

Speaker 2 stole from us for two years. That was horrible.
Yeah. We lost like,

Speaker 2 I mean, we probably had over two years. I don't even know.
It was at least 400 grand that got taken

Speaker 2 by now.

Speaker 3 It was a but you learned a fucking lesson that way, don't you? Yeah, I learned. So, you know, we're similar, right? So, here, how did the dude, Pizza Dude, get your email?

Speaker 2 I'm not sure. Oh, because

Speaker 2 we would put a contact number in case somebody wanted to reach out about something from the show.

Speaker 3 Oh, you did? Because, like, I've done a bunch of deals and people just cold emailing me. Yeah.
Like, I did. I gave this company, this dude's out of Dallas, Tim Ellis and his buddies.

Speaker 3 They said they wanted to start a space company. I'm like, I don't know shit about space, but I'll get you started and see what happens, right? Now it's called Relativity Space.

Speaker 3 I still never met them, right? It was all email. Never met them.
Now I've invested a few million. They're worth $4 billion.

Speaker 3 No way. Yeah, Relativity Space.

Speaker 2 And their space.

Speaker 3 Yeah, these guys, yeah. That's Tim, right?

Speaker 2 I'm an ex-Blue Origin intern, got a $500 check from our Cuban to build a major SpaceX rival. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Coming for you, Elon.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 So what their deal is they build rockets out of three using 3D printers. So you just

Speaker 3 no way. Yeah, it's really cool, right? And they've, to their credit, right? It's not like I helped them get there.
Right. Guys were just insanely smart and good, right?

Speaker 2 So I got lucky, you know, but right, like helping them have some cash.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just got them started, right? Like Tim the Pizza Guy did for you, right? Or Tom the Pizza Guy, right? Yeah, Thomas. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so like sometimes just making yourself available opens a lot of doors. Yeah.
Right. And it's helped me a ton.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Who were your mentors? And then how do you

Speaker 2 differentiate between listening to mentors and trusting your instincts kind of?

Speaker 3 I've never had a mentor. Really? Not a mentor guy at at all.
I always wanted to try to figure out myself. I've always been like super curious, like just somebody who loves to learn.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so, I mean, you know, when I was getting into computers, I was reading the stupid computer manuals, right? Software manuals, hardware. I would sit there and read that shit, right?

Speaker 3 And then I would try it and try it and learn and learn and learn.

Speaker 3 And then once you get started, you realize whether it's business, software, whatever, once you get that base, just it's like learning the podcasting business, right?

Speaker 3 Once you get that base of the basics you're supposed to do, coming up with new shit isn't that hard, right? It's just about your creativity.

Speaker 3 And so i was always just i'm gonna learn it myself learn it myself never had a mentor and then people are like will you be my mentor i'm like i'm still going right i don't have time to be someone else's mentor maybe that's not fair but um no man but not if you're still going you know i mean right now you're mentoring your family you've already said that you choosing to take that extra time that's more important it is especially now if i can get them to listen

Speaker 3 yeah it's crazy dude how your own kids won't mark you've been in the kitchen it's insane and then they're like let me breathe Mark.

Speaker 3 I'd be like, you want me to help you with this business idea or, you know, your project at school? No.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 One of my daughters, I'm not going to say which one, just like rips on me too. You don't know anything about business, dad.

Speaker 3 I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 It's crazy that no matter who you are, you're still just dad.

Speaker 3 You're just dad, which, you know, the best word in the entire English language, dad. Yeah.
Right. When your kids just say, hey, dad, that like makes me melt.
Does it really? Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 It's the best thing ever, ever, ever ever the best one of the best parts about having kids right just they're yours right yeah was your your you you and your dad had a pretty good relationship yeah yeah we did yeah i mean you know it was funny because my dad was like i don't know what the fuck you're doing but keep on doing it and i remember the time i um

Speaker 3 told him that I had a hundred thousand dollars in the bank and he never made more than 40 grand in his life. And he just started crying.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And just taking him places and then telling him and my mom, they can just go wherever they want, whenever they want, and do whatever.

Speaker 2 Cool, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 2 Made you feel good?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, fuck yeah, right. I mean, all they did with my dad, up six o'clock every morning, at work at 7 a.m., come home at 6.

Speaker 3 Oh, fuck yeah, he lost an eye in an accident. So, like, if you had a damn one-eyed worker.
One-eyed worker, right?

Speaker 3 So, already

Speaker 3 behind the eight-ball, right? Yeah, yeah, like you do upholstery and cars.

Speaker 3 Right? Yeah. Oh, it was so gross, right? So, he was like, when the first time.

Speaker 2 My dad lost a finger, dude.

Speaker 3 Did he really?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just remember that.

Speaker 3 You You just remember it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, dude. It made us scared.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Yeah, that's my dad.

Speaker 2 And is this when he had both eyes or one eye?

Speaker 3 Well, no, he had one eye, right? This is when he had one eye. He lost it when I was like 11.
And you can see they're not quite the same, right?

Speaker 3 And so he had a glass eye and he used to freak out my friends. He'd take out the glass eye and it would be like, literally, it looked like apricot jelly behind there.
It was so disgusting.

Speaker 3 That's wicked, bro.

Speaker 2 Dude, that's so cool. Yeah, my dad, yeah, I don't know what he was missing a thing.
Oh, somebody slammed the door on it, I guess, when he was a child. Oh, that's funny.
So, how'd your dad lose it?

Speaker 2 Anyway, cool?

Speaker 3 No, it wasn't cool at all.

Speaker 3 They did upholstery on car seats and cars, and he was putting a staple gun, right? Where you staple down the upholstery, and the staple broke, and he didn't have glasses on, hit him in the eye.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was not. Wow.
Yeah. Yeah, and it was tough.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but he's a fighter.

Speaker 2 That's wild. Is your father still alive?

Speaker 3 No, both my parents died a few years ago.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 Was it tough to have so much control and power? Like, you know, you have ability to affect a lot of things. Was that a tough thing to manage? Like when your parents passed away? Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure it is for anybody.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, my dad was 92 and my mom was 85. So I had good runs, right?

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 yeah, it's still tough, right? And, you know, you expect it because my dad had struggled for a while. My mom got cancer.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 my mom's so insane, right? I'm like, we'll get you treatment, right? We'll do this. We'll do that.
Right. She goes, I just want some pot gummies.
That's all all she wanted.

Speaker 3 She goes, you know, just give me the gummies. All I care about is the gummies.
And my brother Jeff would have to go find gummies in Pittsburgh, right? It was hysterical.

Speaker 3 Come on, mom, we can help you. I don't care.

Speaker 2 Well, you can find some over in Sidney Parker.

Speaker 3 Right, in Shenley Parker. How do you know Pittsburgh?

Speaker 2 Oh, dude, I got pink eye over there. The first time I ever had pink eye, I got it in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 Did you get pink eye a lot?

Speaker 2 No, only had it probably three times.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's a lot, though. But somebody goes, somebody in Pittsburgh said, however, it is.

Speaker 2 Oh, you got some downtown and you're up time. Downtown, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah. You go downtown and hang out the south side.

Speaker 2 They said, you got some downtown and you're uptime.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a big guy, dude. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Pittsburgh accents are the worst.

Speaker 2 Oh, they're the worst and the best.

Speaker 2 You'd see like some lady like just wearing a freaking Jerry Olshansky jersey or something.

Speaker 3 Just like, it just,

Speaker 3 no, the best is when you see some really hot stuff. Like, I obviously don't have a Pittsburgh accent, right? And you see a really, really hot girl in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 And she'd be like, yeah, you're going downtown and hang out in the south side? I'm like, thanks, Dang.

Speaker 3 Horse your cart. Yeah.
Oh, my God. Dude, Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 There's no place like Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 I love it, right?

Speaker 3 It's gotten a lot better from when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 It's one of the best places. There's that movie.
What's that movie? Where's the big wedding in the beginning of it? Is that Deerhunter? No, is that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Deerhunter was filmed in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's all filmed right there. Pittsburgh, if it didn't, and with the land.
landscape, it's one of the more beautiful cities.

Speaker 2 It doesn't get enough credit because the winters are pretty harsh, I think.

Speaker 3 Brutal, brutal, right? But you go to Mount Washington and you go to Lamont restaurant, yeah, and you just see it like just, you know, driving through the tunnels and you see

Speaker 3 Point Park and you see the three rivers. It's beautiful, and they've cleaned it up a lot since I was a kid.
It is really a vibrant town.

Speaker 3 I love it there. It's a tech town.
Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 My friend used to work at Jack's Bar on the south side. Another friend of mine was a mascot over there.
A mascot? Yeah, I think he was a Pittsburgh pirate for a while.

Speaker 3 That's cool. That's cool.
That's cool. I used to work as a bartender.

Speaker 2 W DVE, is that the station there? No, what is it?

Speaker 3 WDVE. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's funny as hell.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, man.
I really have a, I love that place. It's good people.
You worked where there, you said?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I worked at a bar called Chances Are and in Oakland. And that was my summer job when I was in college.

Speaker 2 And Oakland is kind of the downtown area?

Speaker 3 No, Oakland is where the University of Pittsburgh is.

Speaker 2 Okay, bet. They're playing pretty good this year.
They had a good win the other day.

Speaker 2 You mentioned Elon a little bit ago. I know

Speaker 2 you guys have like,

Speaker 2 I don't know if it's a feud. What is it you think? It almost seems romantic a little bit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just like to fuck with him. Right.
I mean,

Speaker 3 because it's like.

Speaker 2 He loves being on Twitter, too.

Speaker 3 Oh, it's his thing, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's paid 40-something based on the business.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you pay $44 billion. You better hang out.
It's like,

Speaker 3 why do I go to the Mavs games, right? You know,

Speaker 3 but yeah, I don't dislike Elon, but he says some stupid shit. And it's just like, I have no problem calling him out.
Yeah. And he's thin-skinned, right?

Speaker 3 And so like, I'll tell you my one little Elon story, right? So I got, I didn't get to know him, but I was, um,

Speaker 3 helped him with something or tried to help him. And so I had his number and I texted him a couple of times.
Like he had a kid and I'm like, congrats on your 97th kid.

Speaker 3 And he texts me back, Mars needs kids, right? Mars needs people. And I'm like, that's funny as shit, right? And so one day I had a Tesla and I said something about it.

Speaker 3 And he just sends me a text with the article saying, fuck you. That's it.
Just fuck you. And I was like, okay.
I mean, it was the truth, right? Fuck you.

Speaker 2 I'm like, okay, so that's a text with the article that what?

Speaker 3 That I said something that wasn't completely, totally positive about Tesla.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay, so that's what that's what an article was about.
Right.

Speaker 3 So he was just like, fuck you.

Speaker 3 I'm like, okay. And then it was nothing, you know, no big deal.
I don't care one way or the other. And then when he buys Twitter, right? And then he starts getting real political, right?

Speaker 3 And so not a lot of people are going to stand up to him. And I'm like, fuck it.
I don't care. Right.
So he's called me racist. He's called me, you know, poop emoji multiple times.

Speaker 3 He calls me all these names. And so like

Speaker 3 that, to me, that just gives me license to fuck with him even more. Right.
I don't care if he calls me names. I don't give a shit what he thinks.
Right. But it's still fun, right?

Speaker 3 You know, just to hit him with the LOLs or whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because at that point, you're just kind of having a good time. And Twitter is a strange place where you can just kind of say whatever.
It kind of exists. It kind of doesn't.
The news, like.

Speaker 2 Twitter's a, it's just such a bizarre place. It really is.
I wish they would take a lot of the pornography off of there.

Speaker 3 Hardcore, right? How they get away with all that shit because you only have to be 13 to go on there, right?

Speaker 3 Yo, you talked about some of the shit we were talking earlier. That's where the shit just shows up in your face all the time.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. That, that, that kind of stuff is, I think, yeah, I wish that we didn't have that.
Um,

Speaker 2 and yeah, and I think, yeah, and he's, yeah, he's always on there. But yeah, I think he, and he might still be high off the fact that he bought it, you know, that he owns it.

Speaker 3 Look, you got to give him tons of credit, right? Yeah. SpaceX, you know, Starlink, Tesla, shit, dude's like the entrepreneur of our generation, right?

Speaker 3 There's like nobody close, you know, at least in the 2000s, right? And so I have total respect for him as an entrepreneur, but his skin is tho, so thin, how can you not fuck with him? Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, well, yeah. I mean, it's, I think it's, I mean, Twitter is definitely a place where, is it real? Is it not real? You know, I don't know.
It's always been interesting.

Speaker 2 I feel I kind of, I was happy that he bought it, though.

Speaker 3 I mean, I feel like it's like a lot of people.

Speaker 2 I feel like he kind of rescued it because I feel like a lot of a lot of like the mainstream media and like the social media platforms they seem all pretty left-leaning right

Speaker 3 used to be for sure right but now like the biggest platforms are fox news daily wire the big names like name the big left-leaning um

Speaker 3 anchors or whatever who are the who are the the most left-leaning big um celebrities in media today?

Speaker 2 Well, I guess you probably have like

Speaker 2 Don Lemon, I guess.

Speaker 3 He got fired. He did? Yeah, he got fired from CNN.
He's gone, right? He ain't got shit going on.

Speaker 2 Oh, damn.

Speaker 2 When life gives you Don Lemon,

Speaker 2 let him go.

Speaker 3 But you get the point, right?

Speaker 2 I don't know. There's no big name.
I think, but CNN, I think a lot of the mainstream media has been notoriously kind of left-leaning. I think his family is.

Speaker 2 It seems like they're anti-I mean, especially like during the first time that Trump was running, like the only people that even the late-night hosts would make fun of were basically like kind of poor whites, it seemed like.

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure. That was wrong.

Speaker 2 It got like, if you were like conservative or Christian, I feel like those people get the brunt of shit a lot of times.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm not going to argue with that, right? But I guess my point is in 2016, it was different, right? TV was still up here, right?

Speaker 3 Getting nine, 10 million viewers a night for a TV show was okay, right?

Speaker 3 And so whoever was on the...

Speaker 3 the news then or CNN, they were getting millions of people. Now the only platforms getting a lot of viewers are like Fox News is the biggest.
MSNBC gets some, like a Rachel Maddow, you could say.

Speaker 3 But for every Rachel Maddow, you know, there's Sean Hannity, there's Laura Ingraham, there's, you know, all the, all the hosts.

Speaker 3 And then you got Ben Shapiro's, you've got all these right-wing, you know, the Tucker Carlsons. And so the bigger stars now and the bigger media presence is on the right.

Speaker 3 And so I think what's happened on Twitter now since Elon has pushed it to the right, I think it's kind of flip-flopped, right?

Speaker 3 In 2016, if you went on and talked about Trump positively, you would get shit on.

Speaker 2 Oh, you couldn't say anything. If you were even a conservative, you couldn't even ask a question.

Speaker 3 Right, you would get shit on, right?

Speaker 2 It was very scary. Right.

Speaker 3 So it was left-leading. But now it's the exact opposite, right? If when I say stuff about Harris, you can just look at

Speaker 3 my mentions, my replies, and I'm just getting destroyed. I'm a communist.
You're a fucking Jew. Go back to hell.
This is this. This is this.
Well, Jesus aren't from hell. That's what they're doing.

Speaker 3 Well, no, but that's what they say. No, it's all crazy.

Speaker 2 Look into history. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, look at a map.

Speaker 3 The anti-Semitism on that place, maybe it's just pointed at me, right? But I know Ben Shapiro, I looked in his replies because I'm just curious, right? So point being that I think it's flip-flopped.

Speaker 3 You do? Yeah. And I think now,

Speaker 3 I mean, look, you had President Trump on here, coming on here, saying his piece, right?

Speaker 2 And we would have Kamala on.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm sure. And I'll put in a good word for you, too.
Yeah. You know, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think it would just be interesting to talk to her.

Speaker 3 No, she's smart. She's fun.
She's easygoing, right? Laughs a lot, but you know, she's chill.

Speaker 3 But I think the whole thing is just flip-flopped. And I think it's harder on Twitter in particular, it's harder to be in support of Harris.
Like, I'm not a liberal, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, socially, I probably am. Physically, I'm conservative and I'm an independent.
I don't belong to either party.

Speaker 3 I don't give a shit about either party, you know, but I'm a Harris fan because I'm not, you know, I like her policies. I've had some influence in her policies, and I'm not a Trump fan at all.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Used to be, but they kind of grew out of it.

Speaker 2 Have you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, what do you think made you grow? Like, that's an interesting term, like grew out of it.

Speaker 3 You know, I would, once

Speaker 3 i came out saying i was for him right oh you you had come out with i said yeah i said it was the best thing that happened to politics because he wasn't a typical candidate now i didn't think he had a chance that's how i felt yeah because i would have elected a fucking donut in the hand if it wasn't a politician exactly right that's like one of my buddies in texas i'm like why are you voting for trump he goes mark i've been voting for politicians my entire life you know what they've done for me nothing you know the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again right so i'm like okay dan i get that right yeah but as i would talk to him and it's funny because in one of my memory things that came up, right, just this morning, I was looking at it and it was like, he sent me a text.

Speaker 3 I'd done a CNN interview. Donald? Yeah, Donald said, well, what he would do is he would write it and then somebody would scan it and then they'd email it to me.

Speaker 3 And so he sent me what happened because he saw a CNN interview where I criticized him. And I literally, I told him, I'm like, you got to start learning the issues, right?

Speaker 3 You can't just talk, you know, at some point, all these things are important.

Speaker 3 And if you're going to be president and you've got a chance to win then you've got to learn this stuff and i just never felt he made an effort to learn anything not just that but anything right and so whenever you try to get into a conversation about details It never worked.

Speaker 3 Now, all that said, even though I don't think he'd make a good president, I don't think he was a good president before, when he did become president, when he asked me to come help during COVID, right?

Speaker 3 When he asked me to help about healthcare, I showed up. Yeah.
Right. Because country over party, right? And I would do it again if he wins, but I hope he he doesn't.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you donated to the Harris campaign?

Speaker 3 No, I haven't given money to any candidate, PAC, anything

Speaker 3 politics related to either party since 2001. And that was like, I don't even know, to Zoe Lofgren.
I don't remember why I gave her money, right? That's when I had broadcast.com.

Speaker 3 So I kind of make a point not to give money so that either you, if I talk to you, either you like my ideas or you don't. And it's not about me buying, you know, your interest.

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Speaker 2 Do you feel like whoever gets to be president that they actually are do,

Speaker 2 do they just spend their time paying back lobbyists? Like, it just feels like we're so far away from

Speaker 2 the days of like maybe Ronald Reagan or I'm trying to think of somebody else like George, no,

Speaker 2 Gerald Ford. I I don't know.
It just seems like we've like we've just become this, America to me feels like this kind of shell company

Speaker 2 for bigger.

Speaker 3 See, I think there's some

Speaker 2 people believe in like the beliefs of our country. Yeah, me too.
But it just feels like the lobbyists control so much. It's like, does the president even matter anymore?

Speaker 3 You know, it's a great point because some of the issues are so complicated, they can't learn all of them, right?

Speaker 2 Of course, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like whatever it is, right?

Speaker 3 But at the same time,

Speaker 3 I think what a lot of people are missing is that

Speaker 3 everybody, all politicians learn from Donald Trump and how he won.

Speaker 3 Oh, they did, you think? Yeah, oh, for sure, right. I see it in the Harris campaign.
I see it in Kamala Harris, right? You know, Donald Trump took over the Republican Party.

Speaker 3 It was no longer the Republican Party.

Speaker 2 That's a great point. I never thought about that.

Speaker 3 He took over, right? It's like whatever he wants. He didn't want to debate in the Republican primary.
So be it, right? They let him not debate, right?

Speaker 3 So, you know, who knows what would happen against Vivek or Nikki Haley or whatever.

Speaker 2 It might have been. But that's right.
They didn't have to debate this year, huh?

Speaker 3 No, they wanted to. The other ones did.
He just didn't participate. And so he just didn't step up and say, okay, I'm going to kick your ass.
I'm happy to debate anybody.

Speaker 3 He said, no, I'm not going to debate. His choice.
But the point being, he controls the Republican Party. I think that's what's happening with.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that wasn't super Democratic, probably.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, it was. But it's his choice, right? The Republican Party is a private entity.
He gets to do the way, and he runs it, right?

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 isn't there an overall body that would say that you guys have to have this?

Speaker 3 Nobody. The Republicans get to pick their candidate the way they want to, and the Democrats get to pick their candidate the way they want to.

Speaker 3 So all this shit about, well, you know, Nikki Hale, I mean, Nikki Haley, Kamala Harris didn't get a single vote, right? Don't matter, right? And tell you what kind of dweeb I am, right?

Speaker 3 And nerd, like, I literally looked up the bylaws of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention.

Speaker 3 And they both say, we basically, in a nutshell, we get to pick the candidates the way we want to pick the candidates. Period story.

Speaker 2 Wow. So either, so, because kind of on both sides, it seems like the, that, the, that Kamala and Donald have just been put in, right? So neither one of them kind of practiced like.

Speaker 2 But it don't matter, right?

Speaker 3 What do they care about? Power. To your point earlier, right? What's the Democratic Party want? Power.
What's the Republican Party want? Power.

Speaker 3 Now, who's in charge of those, each of those businesses, the parties? Donald's in charge.

Speaker 3 and the thing i was saying about learning from donald now kamala is like i'm taking over the democratic party right i see what you're saying right so it used to be like in 2016 people thought well you know all the traditional republicans the mitt romneys or whoever they're really going to run the show and donald was like that right i'm doing it my own way right and so nikki

Speaker 3 Kamala has learned all that stuff now and she's doing it the same way. So she's not like, okay, this is what Bernie wants.
She doesn't give a fuck what Bernie wants.

Speaker 3 You know, this is what Elizabeth Warren wants. She doesn't give a fuck what Elizabeth Warren wants.
She wants to know what's best for the country.

Speaker 3 And so then are people like, well, why was she not this way in California? Because running California, being a senator in California is a completely different job than trying to be the president.

Speaker 3 Just like running real estate is a completely different job than trying to be the president. So I think she's trying to come to center because...

Speaker 3 And she's trying to be the exact opposite of Trump, but she has captured the Democratic Party. Like when I talk to them, it's not like, okay, this is what the Democrats want.

Speaker 3 It's like, okay, what's best for the country and how do we implement that? And how do we convey that so she can win?

Speaker 3 Now, some people might argue Bernie Sanders really is pulling strings, but he ain't, right?

Speaker 2 He didn't seem like that when I spoke with him. He seemed like I didn't even know how vested he was in her being the candidate.

Speaker 3 No, he's not, right? And that's the whole point, right?

Speaker 3 Whatever, right? Because she's in the center.

Speaker 2 So you're saying you believe that she's doing her own thing.

Speaker 3 She's definitely doing her own thing. Like she, like, she says, here's my core values, right?

Speaker 3 I want taxes to be fair. I want to lower taxes for the middle class, right? I want to bring people up and make sure that they have opportunities, right?

Speaker 3 I want to try to do what I can to continue to reduce inflation and costs.

Speaker 3 And I don't want to be negative, you know, whereas Donald is negative a lot, right? And so you hear her talking about joyous and uplifting and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see. I see.
Right.

Speaker 3 Because that's, and I agree with this. That's what's going to bring people together.
You can't say, I hate Taylor Swift, right, and say I'm bringing people together. Right.

Speaker 3 You can't say, all the Haitians are bad, right, legal or illegal, right? And throw all the legal immigrants under the bus like he's done.

Speaker 3 And she's, you haven't heard her criticize like, like, Hillary Clinton fucked up, right? Because you nailed it, right? She was talking shit, the deplorables and all that.

Speaker 3 They're stupid for, that's not Kamala at all. She's like, all right, we're going to bring people together.
I'm going to be joyous. I'm going to be.
uplifting, right?

Speaker 2 I see that. Now I understand a little bit more of her campaign then.
But do you think it's weird that she doesn't do a lot of interviews and stuff, that she doesn't get out there?

Speaker 3 That's a great question. Okay.
So

Speaker 3 when she came in, right, and got nominated.

Speaker 2 Because you kind of don't know who she is. That's like you hear, you see.
So then you start to disbelieve clips because it seems like you don't get a breadth.

Speaker 3 So let's, so now that comes down to this great question, right? So, because I asked the same question, and here's what they said to me: they go, Mark, there's probably 1% of the electric

Speaker 3 of the electorate is high information.

Speaker 3 So so electorate say what it is yeah so one percent of the electorate people who are voting okay it's one percent of people who are voting are high information so people are going to go really look in depth like you and i might right wow right 99 they don't really know her right and so if you look when she came in she had horrible approval ratings she had horrible favorability ratings people didn't know who she is and so what she's doing she's taking a page from the Trump playbook.

Speaker 3 What did Trump do in 2016? He did all those rallies all the time in front of 10, 15, 20. That's exactly what she's doing, right?

Speaker 3 She's going everywhere and doing rally because that's how you get the maximum number of people without having anybody interpret it for her like media might do.

Speaker 3 But the reason she keeps on doing it, it's working, right? She went from having really bad favorabilities, no one knew, to the exact opposite.

Speaker 3 She went from being further behind than Biden because people didn't know, to actually potentially at least break even, if not leading in some cases. It's working.
So why does he just turn around?

Speaker 3 And she's done some friendly interviews like Oprah and the National Association of Black Journalists, and she'll continue to do some stuff, but you do what works, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess. I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, I just wish to, yeah, it feels like you would want to get to know her a little bit better, you know, just to learn a little bit more about.

Speaker 3 But what do you want to know about her?

Speaker 2 That's a good question. I guess for me, I always want to know what somebody's really like.
Yeah. You know, and at least get an, like, just to try to get an idea of that.
And then also you like,

Speaker 2 I think I can understand why a lot of people vote for Trump, you know, because,

Speaker 2 you know, he's had a history of being involved in a lot of shady business, right?

Speaker 3 And that's why they vote for him?

Speaker 2 Well, because America has become what it feels like to a regular person, it feels like I am a,

Speaker 2 I am a,

Speaker 2 I am just a peon in a bigger shady business. It feels like.

Speaker 3 That's interesting. That's really, really interesting.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, so then it feels like like, yeah, our water is dirty. There's our kids,

Speaker 2 we're, you know, parents are boiling their own water now at homes because they feel like that water is not safe and it's causing kids to have autism. Our, our, are,

Speaker 2 you know, we're, our drugs, people have to spend all their money on drugs.

Speaker 3 Like, well, I'm fixing that, so I'll get to that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll get to that.

Speaker 2 But like, yeah, one of the largest causes of bankruptcy is medical debt in this country. There's a huge shell game insurance scam going on

Speaker 2 between hospitals and

Speaker 2 insurance providers and

Speaker 2 big business. It's just but just look at that, right?

Speaker 3 Those shady things you mentioned, he tried to fix. Like, I literally went to the White House to talk about healthcare and the shit I'm doing.
And he wanted to talk about how we saved $35 billion on

Speaker 3 Boeing aircrafts. Right.

Speaker 3 We couldn't have a conversation about it at all.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and maybe that some of that stuff is evolving with him. I don't know, you know, I don't, but, but I think my point was that it's gotten to the point where you,

Speaker 2 everything seems like such a shady business that i want somebody who is shady no i want somebody in there who can do shady business

Speaker 2 well that is a guy who does shady business well but that's but i think that's how a lot of people think like really this whole thing is

Speaker 2 me so much that at least he's my criminal let me

Speaker 3 he's my criminal if he is a criminal he's my criminal criminal he's my criminal

Speaker 3 right yeah or but yeah because they feel like this other thing is such a it's so so mobster that you need a mobster that's what i'm saying i mean that's the best description or reason i've heard of anybody wanting to vote for donald trump literally the best right because you're right right if everything is that shady then and he certainly i mean he's ripped off i can't even tell you how many people right people i know right that he's ripped off i mean there's been a lot of alleged issues with condos no i'm telling you about yeah i'm telling you people i know right he like barbara carceran she said something about this um from shark tank right she he hired her or asked her to sell a bunch of condos in a new building that he put up.

Speaker 3 And she did. Sold everything she asked.
He offered her $4 million.

Speaker 3 He wouldn't pay her. She had to sue him just to get her money.

Speaker 2 But how does somebody benefit by behaving like that? Like as a...

Speaker 3 When that's the only way you know? I mean, he was born rich.

Speaker 3 Right? He's never had to find his, you know, Damon Johnson.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's always had good hair, dude. Rich people always have clean hair.
I remember.

Speaker 3 I don't know about that, but.

Speaker 3 Yeah, good

Speaker 3 just call me Becky.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there you go. Well, she likes him as a salesperson, but down in there, it talks about how he ripped her off.

Speaker 3 How do you, you know, Trump University, Trump Foundation, Trump Soho, just example after example where he ripped off hardworking Americans again and again and again.

Speaker 3 And to think all of a sudden he just changed who he is? Just not the case. Like, look what he's doing fucking now, right? A mint silver coin.

Speaker 3 if you're okay if you're a billionaire right all of a sudden you just made a billion dollars to you took your company public you put a billion dollars in the bank are you going to be selling silver medallion coins what do they look like does it matter i don't know i haven't seen it you know what i'm talking it's just oh you is it like so oh you mean like one of those commemorative coins oh commemorative coins right that you see on the latest commemorative everything don't they yeah but this is supposed to be the guy running for president right and so he's selling commemorative coins oh that's wild he's selling sneakers gangster bro but why if you're rich selling sneakers right because he's donald also has a you know he has a very

Speaker 3 look at this shit those

Speaker 2 those things are hype as fuck dude and i wish i could get there to be honest just because they're pretty tough i mean they're ridiculous but they're tough but i think he's got a you know he loves being donald trump yes he does undeniably and i don't blame him for that more power to him right love your life right enjoy every minute i hope he enjoys every minute of his life right i got nothing against like, I like the guy.

Speaker 3 If he was here and we were just talking shit, I'd get along great with him. Right.
But that's different than wanting him to be president of the United States again, right? Totally different.

Speaker 3 And I think you need somebody you can trust. Now, is Kamala perfect? No, right? Do I agree with everything she's going to do or says? No.
Right. But I think you can trust her.
Right.

Speaker 3 And that's the difference. And if you want to,

Speaker 3 I don't think we need to keep things in gangster mode. And I know that's why she's talking to me, right? I mean, that sounds stupid, right? But like fixing healthcare, right?

Speaker 3 She's not saying, okay, this lobby is or that lobby. She's like, how do we fix it, right? What do we do to make it to save people money?

Speaker 3 You know, that's the difference, right? And I understand completely if you think everything's gangster, the deep state and all this shit, but like, to me, that's just playing the victim. You know?

Speaker 2 You mean by believing that sort of mentality?

Speaker 3 No, that when he does it, right? When he says they're out, you know, it's the deep state. He was fucking the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world.

Speaker 3 And what did he do to stop the deep state? Now he just stopped talking about it. He doesn't talk about the deep state anymore.
That's supposedly the ultimate gangster shit, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, if it's gangster and fucked up the way you say, and maybe it is, right?

Speaker 2 Maybe I just miss it. It feels like it.

Speaker 3 No, and I'm not saying it's not, right? Maybe I just don't see it, right? Maybe I've got it too good and I don't see the shit, right?

Speaker 3 But,

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 it ain't going to get un-gangster. It's not going to get better if you put in a gangster, right?

Speaker 3 And if you put somebody who's a gangster in Tony Soprano style that only worries about loyalty, if you have an idea, he ain't listening. He's doing it his way.
Where I think with her, she'll listen.

Speaker 2 One interesting thing that he did.

Speaker 2 Well, I wonder how much would be different from the first time that he had the experience to be president to, because sometimes you do something and you learn. Right.

Speaker 3 The question is: does he become more gangster or more legit? Right. What do you think?

Speaker 3 i i don't know it's a good question i i think it would that's the thing i wish i knew a little bit more about how he thinks and is you know and that's the toughest thing is being a regular voter it's so hard to get to know how some but that's the exact same thing you said about kamala right really is you know right because when he look again i don't hate him i don't really don't hate anybody yeah right i respect him right i just don't agree with him and i don't think he'd be a good president but when he came on here right and i listened to the interview he talked pretty much, other than your talk about his brother and what happened there, which was really cool, right?

Speaker 3 You know, you deserve a lot of credit. He deserves a lot of credit.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I wish he would have talked a little more about it, you know. I think it's hard to get into some of his, like, an emotional side with him some.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and I wish that it was maybe a little more possible. But, you know, he's also an older, he, you know,

Speaker 2 he's an older guy, senior citizen. And it's harder.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's harder for that.

Speaker 2 And I don't know him, you know.

Speaker 3 But, but, you know, what I was going to say is he didn't really get into any details about anything other than the personal stuff with his brother, right? You know, and your stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I think he wants to, you know, he wants, I think there's just things people want to feel. They want to feel safe, right?

Speaker 2 So you want the, you want different things that are, that are happening at the border. Like we had a couple of border patrol agents on, and they were saying that

Speaker 2 that a lot of the problems, it's not, they used to, they used to have like usual like Mexican migration that comes up to help with farming and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 And then it's just gotten out of control. And then now it's gotten really out of control.

Speaker 2 So I think his state like him saying that we want to close that or make it be like appropriate ways that that affects people's safety. No, I agree, right?

Speaker 3 Everybody wants safety, right? And I think Biden fucked up. No question about it.
He waited too long to do anything about it.

Speaker 3 Now, if you look at what's going on now, they're at the same level, the border crossings are at the same level they were under Trump. Right.
So they've, they've come way down.

Speaker 3 And she has already said she wants to sign the border bill that the Republicans put out there, right?

Speaker 3 Not build a wall, but shut it down even further, which I, which I think is.

Speaker 2 Even further than a wall.

Speaker 3 Yeah, further than it is now, because they've already got it down to where it was when they built the wall, as much as they got built, right?

Speaker 3 It's the same numbers as at the end of the pre-COVID stuff for Trump, 400,000 a day, whatever it is, right? And she wants to take it even further. She's not Joe Biden, right?

Speaker 3 So I agree with that, that it's a big deal.

Speaker 3 But he also said he just wanted to deport everybody.

Speaker 3 How the fuck do you do that? Yeah. You're just going to to walk into somebody's house, hey, I know there might be somebody who may or may not be illegal,

Speaker 3 get the local cops and just pull them out of their house. You know, what's that going to do to cities? You know, I mean, you go through LA, yeah, there's a bunch of illegals, right?

Speaker 3 But they're not all,

Speaker 3 not all their families are illegal.

Speaker 2 Vijente, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And so if your family is getting dragged out the front door, what are you doing? Right.
Right.

Speaker 3 And he gets the National Guard or the local cops to start dragging people out, putting them in a bus and sending sending them, how do you think their community is going to respond?

Speaker 2 Well, I guess it depends. Yeah, I think I agree.
It's tough. It's like, how do you get into the minutia of some of those things?

Speaker 3 You've got to follow the law, right? But he's saying he's just going to drag them out their doors, right? He hasn't given any real details how he would do it.

Speaker 3 And what I'm saying is, if it's, let's just say he decides it's against Jewish people. Yeah.
Just pull it out of left field. I'm not saying he is.
He's not going to, right?

Speaker 3 Fucking, that's happened to us before, right? And in a country where there's this many guns, people are pulling out their guns, right?

Speaker 3 And I'm, I don't know, but I'm thinking if I'm Hispanic and I have a brother-in-law or, you know, somebody, my father, whatever, who's illegal, and they're just coming to my front door, I'm not just letting them take them and just say, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 Give me another. Right.
Unless you do it the right way. There's way, look, they called Obama the deporter in chief.
He deported more people than Trump ever did, but he followed the law to do it.

Speaker 3 As long as you follow the law, that's great. But when Donald goes around saying, we're just going to fucking kick him out, right? I'm going to do whatever.

Speaker 2 Right. That just sounds like more, it sounds like a boast and not like more the actual practice.

Speaker 3 Right, more gangster, right?

Speaker 2 But I think the fact that so many people have been let in, it's like there's Venezuelans in Brooklyn that are running like prostitution rings out of parks over there. Yeah.
You know? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I don't know.

Speaker 3 And there's Americans doing the same shit, too, right?

Speaker 2 Right. That's a good point.

Speaker 3 But I'm not trying to make excuses for him. Right.
Get the motherfuckers out, but follow the law to do it. Tell us how you're going to do it.

Speaker 2 Right. That's a good point.
Yeah, he doesn't. Donald doesn't have much of a, he's not very finesse when it comes to the emotional comfort of how something's challenged.

Speaker 3 Just respect the law. Otherwise, shit could hit the fan in a bad way.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But the fact that people have come in lawlessly, it feels like...

Speaker 3 Biden fucked up. No one's changed.
No one's saying he didn't.

Speaker 3 He let too many people in. That could have been the Bernie Sanders side of him, right? I'm not saying, you know, he did the right thing.
Yeah. Right.
But you are where you are. Right.

Speaker 3 So the only question is, how do you fix it? Right. And just

Speaker 3 you are where you are. The situation is the situation.
When that company, CAS or whatever it was, fucked you up, you were where you were. Yeah.
And you just had to deal with it. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 3 You could sue, you could do whatever. You could follow law.
You did what you had to do. Right.
It's the same with this, right? You are where you are.

Speaker 3 And if he's going to get people out, which he should,

Speaker 3 he's not saying I'll follow the Obama model, but instead of 3 million people deported, it's going to be 11 million.

Speaker 2 Right. Let's hear the practice more.
Right.

Speaker 2 What is it?

Speaker 3 How do you do it? When you have 300 million, 400 million guns in a fucking country, people aren't just going to say, take my brother. Thank you very much.
Right.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, that's a great point. I think, yeah, I think that you have to have more of an idea of, yeah, how are things going to be.

Speaker 3 You got to tell us how you're going to do it, right?

Speaker 3 You can't just say, I'm going to deport, because to your point, right, it gets people mad and they want to vote because they feel threatened, right?

Speaker 3 They don't feel safe, you know, and I don't blame them for not feeling, for being mad and not feeling safe. That's legit, right? But how are you going to fix it? Right.

Speaker 3 Kama's saying, okay, here's the program, right, that we got from James Lankford, whoever the guy from Oklahoma, I think it is, who, um, for this Republican bill. I'll sign it, right?

Speaker 3 Because this is a problem. She hasn't said how she's going to deal with deportations.
That's something that she should be asked. I don't know the answer.
I don't know where her head is on that.

Speaker 3 But I do know that if you go more gangster on this, That it could escalate and get worse, you think? Yeah, wouldn't you?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I hadn't thought about it like that exactly.
You know, I hadn't thought about what are the actual practices of it, you know?

Speaker 3 Dude hires people illegals in Mar-Lago. Yeah.
Right?

Speaker 2 Oh, well, that's an interesting thing about our whole country is it's like people say, well, we don't want illegals here, but then people hire illegals to also do their jobs.

Speaker 3 Do the judges, right? And they're not doing like, they're not doing these jobs, right? They're doing, you know, the shitty jobs.

Speaker 2 But most of the people that are coming over now,

Speaker 2 it's gotten so much more out of like people just coming over to work and send money back home.

Speaker 2 It's gotten like most of the people aren't even mexican people that are coming over now it's all other types which doesn't make those people any better or any worse no i hear you but it's still like if it's like it just makes me like i can't walk i'm scared to let my kid walk the block to school now or just because i don't know and and you if you feel like these people don't have a social security number then there's no way to even prosecute them or have them be contributing members well no that's not true right so even if they don't have a social security number if they break the law they'll they'll deport them, right?

Speaker 3 Or they'll throw them in jail, whatever it may be. They're not saying because you don't have a social security number, you can't be prosecuted.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see. Right.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's not the way it works.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 a lot of people, the executive branch, one of the Border Patrol guys said that the executive branch, they're not doing the processing well enough.

Speaker 2 So a lot of times they get the same people over and over again.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they send them back, they come right back over. They send them back, that's fucked up.

Speaker 2 Right. So

Speaker 2 obviously we have to do better. Yeah.
And there used to be a program where families got to sponsor somebody that was coming over.

Speaker 3 Back in the day, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know where that is or what's going on.

Speaker 2 That would just be cool because then you, as a person that's already that lives here or is a citizen here, you feel like you have a connection to that.

Speaker 3 You know, it's like that's how my grandparents got in the country. Yeah.
They came over from Ukraine and all over the fucking place, right?

Speaker 3 It was either be killed where they were or get your ass over here. Right.
Right.

Speaker 2 I just think we're at a tough space in this country where it's like people are struggling with addiction. People are struggling with home home ownership.

Speaker 2 We're dealing with, you know, less marriages than ever. Like the family unit is broken.
People are scared. You know,

Speaker 2 a person can't care about their kids because they have to fucking work all day or they can, but it's just hard to manage. And well, how do you think you fix that? I don't know.

Speaker 2 And I think it's a lot to think that one person could be the person that does it.

Speaker 3 And I don't even know how you, as a, as a leader, say you need the help from the people because they're already stressed that's what a leader is supposed to do right right that's the whole job right that's why i turned on trump because he didn't pay attention to those details it wasn't like he had a team that was like i got this guy to do this i got this guy to do that and even now who else well he has at least he i do like that he brought in bobby kennedy jr you know yeah i'm not a big bobby kennedy you're not no not at all yeah yeah because of the healthcare i like his stuff on unprocessed foods right i think that's legit in fact one of my buddies todd wagner one of my partners this whole thing is on you know getting rid of unprocessed foods.

Speaker 3 He helped sign a law in California to get all these dyes and shit out. So, I'm in agreement there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's one thing I love about him. And clean water, just trying to clean up the environment.
You know, with that, yeah, those are the things that I love.

Speaker 2 Those are the things that I only really know that he does.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I got no problem with that side of him, right? The whole vaccine thing, I think that's he's misguided on that. But that's what makes a market, right? That's okay, people can disagree.

Speaker 2 And you need somebody to say this is you needed a

Speaker 2 you needed because half of America was like, This feels like

Speaker 2 we should just let it, it's not that dangerous. We should let it figure itself out.
And nobody was even allowed to say that it felt like

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 this feels like a that during COVID, this just feels like something that

Speaker 2 we need to let it run its course through people instead of like going this in this such a like a kind of almost felt like a communist route of like locking everything down.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, we don't have to go into that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was responsible for 20,000 people coming into a Mavs game. And if somebody would have died because I didn't want them to be vaccinated and vaccinated.

Speaker 3 None of that, I would have felt like shit for the rest of my life. Yeah.
Right. So just different, yeah.
So everybody can have different perspectives on vaccines. I was ProVax.
Yeah, I was ProVax.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know what I was vax on it. I don't know.
I mean, I guess I was probably anti. I don't know if I was anti-vax.
I just felt like they suddenly shut down all of the AA rooms and shit.

Speaker 2 And that killed so many people because they couldn't go get meetings.

Speaker 3 And you're like, can't zoom everything. Right.

Speaker 2 And they're like, I'm going to die because I'm an addict and i don't covet

Speaker 3 some of my worries yeah no my brother's 17 years sober so i went through all that with him right so i yeah not having some of that i so i just think that the way that it was all handled felt like um look with everything look it's easy to look it back at yeah right thing you can look at everything differently right because in hindsight everything's 2020 right but when you're in the middle of it and people are dying It's scary as fuck.

Speaker 3 But that's the difference between leadership, like going back to leadership. I mean, you nailed it, nailed it.
You need leaders, right?

Speaker 3 And leaders may not be able to do everything themselves personally, but you got to have people around you that can do it. And that's where I think Trump is fucked up.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you don't hear a lot about who he's going to get to help him with each thing.

Speaker 3 And a lot of it's because the people who he used before all turned on him, right? All his cabinet members, 40 out of his 44 cabinet members said, we ain't voting for him, right?

Speaker 3 We don't think he's qualified to do this job. And, you know,

Speaker 3 so healthcare, you hear Vance mention mention some things, but what else? Right. Deportations.
You hear Donald say he's going to do it, but how? Right.

Speaker 3 Can you name one thing that Donald said, how he's going to do it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, well, I think that's another thing that even on the Kamala side, it's like, I wish there were more some specifics about the policies. It's almost like.

Speaker 2 They could both use a tune-up in some of that area. For sure.

Speaker 3 No, you know, we got 45 days or whatever it is to find out from Kamala what she's going to do. I'm pushing them to get as much detail out, right?

Speaker 3 I talk to their team three, four times a week.

Speaker 3 Yeah, via text, right?

Speaker 3 And I give them shit when they deserve shit, right? And I'll say what I think and they listen though, right? They may not agree all the time, but they'll listen. Yeah.
And so I know, like,

Speaker 3 when I talk to her team, they're like, okay, we got to talk to the policy director of this or that, right? Healthcare, we're going to talk about, you know, independent pharmacies going up.

Speaker 3 Okay, we have a group that's looking at healthcare in general. Let us get your feedback and go.
Like I was talking to them the other day on Amazon. Do you sell anything on Amazon by chance?

Speaker 2 I never, I bought stuff on there. Yeah, but never.

Speaker 3 Okay, so like little companies, like Shark, I found this out in Shark Tank, right? So little companies that make headphones, right?

Speaker 3 They get knocked off a lot, a lot, right? So you come up with an idea to do something, blood, sweat, and tears, you put it on Amazon. Some fuckers in China are like, I make that shit, right?

Speaker 3 I'm going to go on there and just knock it off, right? And sell it there. And as a little company, it's hard.

Speaker 3 It's not impossible, but it's hard to get Amazon to take it down, particularly on a timely basis. And so they lose, you know, they can lose half, 75%, all of their sales to these knockoffs, right?

Speaker 3 And so I said to them, you know, hey, here's what I learned from these companies, right? Amazon isn't the good partner they used to be for these little companies.

Speaker 3 Can we do something together? Can I put something together? They're like, yeah, put something together for us because you're right. We need to do it.

Speaker 3 It's not right that China is knocking off some of our smallest entrepreneurs even big entrepreneurs right and stealing their business so it's not about tariffs it's about okay so i propose to them can we get these chinese companies to register before they're allowed to sell on amazon get them to put up like a 25k bond in case they rip off people there's some money there right for every product they sell you're going to sell headphones right post it up just like like a patent you have to post your patent before it gets approved yeah do that you have to put your rating in the restaurant window or whatever yeah right same type of thing right so post whatever it is you're going to sell and put up five grand for it, right?

Speaker 3 Again, in case you violate IP. That's revenue for the country that protects our small independent businesses, right?

Speaker 3 And it protects us against China, who, you know, they don't care about IP all the time, right? And they were like, great idea. We have a policy team to look at that stuff for us, right?

Speaker 3 That's the big difference, right? So we don't have all the details yet. And I think that's not as good as it should be.

Speaker 3 But hopefully we'll get all those out in policy papers and everything and get some details. I haven't even seen who Trump is going to turn to for details.

Speaker 2 So you feel like with the Democratic Party that with Kamala's group that there's more organization?

Speaker 3 A lot more and a lot more details paid attention to. Got it.
Right. And I think that's important.
Maybe there's people that Donald has put together and we just don't see it.

Speaker 2 But you don't think there is.

Speaker 2 Who do you think is going to

Speaker 2 well, thanks, man. Yeah, I like talking about that stuff.
Sometimes Sometimes I get kind of scared to talk about it, I guess, because some

Speaker 2 things I don't know, and everybody doesn't, nobody knows everything.

Speaker 3 Nobody knows shit compared to the big picture, right?

Speaker 2 Um, do you think, who do you think will win?

Speaker 3 I have no idea. I know

Speaker 2 that fucking crazy, crazy. Do you think we still have a fair election process in this country?

Speaker 3 Absolutely, you do, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Absolutely, that's my biggest fear is just that we don't have one, and that I think. And when you start to, that's one thing it gets really weird because you start to think that

Speaker 2 since other things seem kind of like lobbyists are involved in everything and there's you know bernie sanders was saying we have more lobbyists than we have yeah um reps and senators that i believe right like he said there's three lobbyists for every one it's like within what what are where's the what's the real government almost feels like the lobbyist becomes real government so like then you start to just so i finish mark just but then you start to um

Speaker 3 you start to think that if that all that feels so compromised is the voting compromised yeah i mean you don't think it is no as a geek yeah and having looked at a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 3 I mean, I'm not the ultimate geek in all this, but

Speaker 3 yeah, I'm pretty confident. And plus, they've been sued a thousand times.
All the, all the, um,

Speaker 3 the states that Trump questioned were audited and had recounts. And notice he didn't question the states he won.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point, huh?

Speaker 3 Right. So it's not like he didn't trust it, right? He just, and I remember going to, I got invited by Clinton to one of the early debates in 2016.

Speaker 3 And he was talking then about how the election wasn't going to be fair. So one of the coolest books I ever read was about a guy named Roy Cohen, right?

Speaker 3 And I don't know if you ever heard of the McCarthy trials in the 50s where they were calling everybody a communist.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 3 And so I did a movie actually, executive produced a movie called Good Night and Good Luck. Got nominated for Sixth Academy.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, with George Clooney.

Speaker 3 It was George Clooney, right? And it was all about that. Well, Roy Cohen was Donald Trump's mentor.

Speaker 3 And Roy Cohen, who was the guy who was defending the people saying you're a communist, you're a communist, right?

Speaker 3 And his approach was deny, deny, deny, deny, and it's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault, and they're out to get me.

Speaker 3 Everything Donald is doing is Roy Cohn part two.

Speaker 2 So you feel like that's a lot of his motive,

Speaker 2 that's a lot of his template?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's his template. Yeah, that's the right word template.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I think a lot of people feel like

Speaker 2 it's all so against them that they'll fucking throw a wrench into the just to fuck it up further, right? Well, no, just because it's like, we'll fire anything at you.

Speaker 2 It's like, I think there's a lot of that mentality is that he's not a politician so you're going after him so it's better than having a politician in there because the polit because the political landscape has gotten so

Speaker 3 i would agree look

Speaker 3 like when biden was running i feel differently about combat but when biden was running if you had a non-maga republican running i would probably vote for them right i'm you know i just

Speaker 3 And you nailed it, right?

Speaker 2 You said socially liberal, fiscally conservative.

Speaker 3 Yeah. The whole, the whole gangster thing, I think that's just wrong.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 yeah like when i was a little kid i used to go with my buddy jay and his dad was a numbers collector you know and so we would oh really yeah when he had just plus three dudes yeah right yeah no this is why i'll take number seven right right oh with horses no no no just literally numbers so back in the day um the

Speaker 3 mafia basically right in pittsburgh and everywhere they would allow you to pick a number i don't know out of how many you're like one to 20 you pick a number and you bet right and each number had different odds and if your number came up you got paid It's more like roulette.

Speaker 3 That was it. Yeah.
That was more like, we call it numbers, right?

Speaker 2 It was like roulette, but somebody came and told you what the number was?

Speaker 3 Yeah, they just posted the number and that was it, right? And they knew what you would bet. And if you didn't pay up, wow.
Right.

Speaker 3 Not that they would hit him, but they were just, my buddy's dad used to sit there with the little, you know, little souvenir baseball bats they give at games, the little tiny one. Pap, pap, pap.

Speaker 3 And it was cool as shit sitting in his, you know, 1968 Buick Riviera. I thought I was badass as hell at the time.

Speaker 2 Collecting numbers, dude, that's cool.

Speaker 3 But the gangster shit, right? Yeah. What's a gangster? Always a gangster.
And when it comes time to dealing with stuff, it's self-preservation first.

Speaker 3 That's the number one rule of being a gangster, isn't it? You know, stay out of jail, keep your shit going. That's not putting the country first.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, the problem is it feels like the country hasn't been first for a long time. And so people want a gangster.
So that's why I understand.

Speaker 3 I understand too, right? You explained it better than anybody, right? The way you said it to me was the only thing that I've been told. Okay, I get that, right?

Speaker 3 You know, or like my buddy said i'm tired of voting for politicians i get that but i don't know if that's who donald trump is these days yeah yeah i mean look it's interesting that's why it's you know it's fun to talk about it yeah no hey just to have a good conversation yeah no yelling no screaming and i totally respect your thoughts and i respect a lot of your insights

Speaker 2 and vice versa yeah 100 yeah and i would love to be able to have her on they reached out like last week about it oh cool and so we've been who reached out do you know i'm not sure i'll have to check with my my buddy Zach you know but or just email me who reached out and I'll find out but it'd be good work for you yeah it'd be interesting you know just to I think because

Speaker 2 the toughest thing as like a regular person who just can go vote it's like you've just even more these days you want to try and figure out who is this person you know you obviously have a lot of like thoughts and creativity and you've had success.

Speaker 2 Do you feel like running for office? Have you thought about it? Fuck no.

Speaker 3 I've thought about it. Yeah.
I've even looked into it. Yeah, but it's not going to happen.
Right. All the shit that they're going through, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you just even mean on a human basis. Yeah, on a human basis.

Speaker 3 Like, why would I put my family through that? Right. Right.
And with Cos Plus, I can have an impact. Right.
And I just think I can do more outside than inside.

Speaker 3 And I'm just not good at, you know, all the formalities and all that shit. You know, you're not, I mean, showing up at a state dinner in jeans and a t-shirt isn't going to work.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 3 I think people would love it.

Speaker 2 That would be me. Oh, I just think people would love that.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 My wife would kill me.

Speaker 2 Did you ever ask her what you thought?

Speaker 3 Yeah, my family voted no.

Speaker 2 No, you sat them down?

Speaker 3 Ford and one. Yeah, sat him down.

Speaker 3 Ford, no, one, yes.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. Did you even try to lobby one of them to even help you a little bit?

Speaker 3 Well, my son got into it a little bit, but he was only like 13 at the time. So that was annoying.
Damn.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess what moments are, what, what...

Speaker 2 What is it the part of you that makes you feel like you would want to do or could do it?

Speaker 3 Because I just want to do the right thing. Right.

Speaker 3 you know if there's a deep state i don't need anything from anybody right you can't buy me right and i try to be smart about things i'm curious and i like to learn um i want to listen and be open-minded um

Speaker 3 and i think i've got approaches that have worked for me in the past but

Speaker 3 also are getting results now you know,

Speaker 3 like the cost plus drug stuff.

Speaker 3 I know how to change industries, whether it was the streaming industry, HDTV, you know, movies, whatever it it is, any industry I've gotten into, I've managed to kind of bubble to the top.

Speaker 3 And, you know, and I also know, you know, to trust smart people, to partner with people who know shit that I don't know, how to, you know, how to complement my skill sets. I mean,

Speaker 3 maybe I'd be too honest about the whole thing, but I think I could do a good job, but there's just no way I'm putting my family through that.

Speaker 2 So that's why maybe if you had an extra 15 years in your life, you would think about it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, but they're still my family, right?

Speaker 3 And it's like, like a lot yeah i mean with when clinton was president the worst he did was try to smoke dope yeah right you know and obama and he got that hummer too yeah right well yeah but that was after the fact he was he was already in right yeah

Speaker 2 but um yeah i mean and was that i mean who knows look i think if you're the president but he was married though yeah that was why whatever it was right yeah you know

Speaker 3 To get elected, all you had to do was say, I didn't inhale, right? Shit's totally different now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, shit's way different.

Speaker 3 You know, you got pictures. Yeah, your kids were here.
You were there doing this, doing that.

Speaker 2 It would put your family through brutal.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Brutal.

Speaker 2 So that's a big reason, really. Do you think that keeps a lot of people out of it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure. Wow.
For sure.

Speaker 2 It is. It's a scrutiny.
It's that media scrutiny that they have.

Speaker 3 I mean, look at Kamala, right? She was 30 years old, fucking a dude older, right? Or young. She's in her 20s.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Montel Jordan or something. So whatever, right?

Speaker 3 Just having fun.

Speaker 3 If it was me and you, we'd be like, let's go party with Kamala and Montel, right? Let's go, go. Let's go, right? And now, you know, all the shit she goes through.
And

Speaker 3 that's not bad, right?

Speaker 3 But imagine that, you know, she doesn't, you know, and even like her stepdaughter, the one who was a little bit, you know, that has all the tattoos and shit that they were giving shit to.

Speaker 2 Oh, I haven't seen her.

Speaker 3 Yeah, only because.

Speaker 2 Oh, wait, I did see her. Yeah.
They gave her shit because

Speaker 2 how she looks. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The tats and everything and all that. And whatever, right? I don't remember all the details.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, remember the Baron Trump stories came out. He has autism or he has down.
Whatever. You're like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 3 But I will tell you this, when I went to the White House to to visit Donald, you know, he was rambling around the show.

Speaker 2 This was when he was in office?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and this is like 2019. He's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And we were trying to talk about healthcare, but he went off at a bunch of different stuff.

Speaker 3 He goes, are you still on that show, Shark, whatever? I'm like, yeah. He goes, Baron loves that show.
I'm like, tell Baron. And he goes, that's his favorite show.
I'm like, tell Baron, thanks.

Speaker 3 And then I'm walking out. He goes, wait, I'm like, what? He goes, that suit looks really good on you.

Speaker 3 That's who he is, right? He's going to give compliments like that and shit like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What was I going to? Oh, I want to talk about your

Speaker 2 drug company starting.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Because, yeah, one of the toughest things is that people pay more.

Speaker 2 Well, first,

Speaker 2 you tell me what's the best order for this because we talked about like the insurance, the scam that goes on between hospitals and insurers and regular people.

Speaker 2 And then, can you explain that to me and then tell me how your drug helps?

Speaker 3 So where we fit in all that. Okay.
Okay. So

Speaker 3 there's

Speaker 3 insurance, well, that's the best way to explain it. There's

Speaker 3 drugs that you take, and then there's what they call providers, the hospitals you go to, right?

Speaker 2 Okay, so the hospitals you go to is the provider.

Speaker 3 The provider, right? And then there's the payers, which are the insurance companies. Okay.

Speaker 3 And the insurance companies try to do deals with the providers.

Speaker 3 But they're not always up and up, right? The provider, it's not the providers, it's just the insurance companies have all the the leverage because they have the money, right?

Speaker 3 And hospitals are just trying to get all the business that they can get. And so there's all these games and arbitrages that are played over and over and over again.

Speaker 3 But what I think people don't realize is almost everybody with health care, like, where do you get your health care? Or do you just self-pay or do you have insurance? I have health insurance.

Speaker 2 Through, do you know? I'm not sure, but it costs $400 a month.

Speaker 3 Okay, so it's probably the ACA, right? The Obamacare, Obamacare, right? But you have a deductible, right?

Speaker 3 And let's just say for the shits and giggles, that's $2,000 deductible.

Speaker 3 For the hospital, even though this insurance company is going to pay anything above $2,000, you're responsible for that $2,000, right?

Speaker 3 And the hospital, like, is already not going to get paid on 50% of the deductibles. And so that's why you get a lot of this bad debt.

Speaker 3 The insurance companies don't pay for the whole thing and they plan everything so they don't have to pay for the whole thing. And that creates a lot of medical debt.

Speaker 3 And so there's a lot of- Medical debt that the hospitals owe. That no, that the individuals with the deductibles

Speaker 3 because they can't afford to pay their deductible. Got it.
Right. And so, you know, you have some disease and you can't afford your deductible, which is $2,000.

Speaker 3 It doesn't matter that it covers above $2,000, right? Because you can't pay the first $2,000.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 that puts people in a lot of fucked up situations. And even hospitals, the providers in bad situations, because a big part of their revenue isn't getting paid.
Right.

Speaker 3 And here's the insurance company not giving a fuck.

Speaker 3 They're just saying, that's your problem, not mine. Right.
I'll pay you what I think I owe you, maybe. Right.

Speaker 3 And so all that, the insurance companies put pressure on the hospitals, the providers, the doctors, and the doctors then put pressure on the patients. That's where it's all fucked up, right?

Speaker 3 And so what we're pushing for with the Harris campaign and in general is is a lot of that happens because there's no transparency.

Speaker 3 Nobody knows what the contract is between the insurance company and the hospitals. Nobody knows what the contract is between the insurance company and your employer.

Speaker 3 And so as a result, the biggest companies have the most leverage and can fuck with everybody.

Speaker 3 And that's where things go bad. So what I'm saying is if you make every insurance contract and provider contract public, then all of a sudden people can understand just like that.

Speaker 2 It's called Power to the Patients. Are you familiar with them? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's a group out there called Power to the Patients

Speaker 2 that lobbies for

Speaker 2 price that you have to know how much an MRI costs when you go to get it. Right.

Speaker 2 So that that way if the hospital says the MRI costs $700, then the one down the street is going to have to say it costs $650

Speaker 2 to compete, right? Right. And they're going to have to start to compete.
And there's an executive order that says they have to do that.

Speaker 2 And that was a good thing that Trump did, but it wasn't enforced by the Biden administration.

Speaker 3 Well, because the penalty is only like $1,000 a day.

Speaker 2 So they'd rather pay the penalty?

Speaker 3 Right, right. And so, like,

Speaker 3 I funded a study that had people call the hospitals to see if they can get those cash prices. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 3 And a lot of them didn't even know, a third of them didn't even know what the cash prices were.

Speaker 2 Right. Wow.
So they're not being instructed.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they just don't know, right? Cause that's not, they don't care. That's not a big part of their business, right? They want to get all the money from the insurance companies.

Speaker 3 So anyways, circling around to what we do, right?

Speaker 3 So I got a cold email, just like Thomas the Pizza Guy, got a cold email from a guy named Dr. Alex Oshmianski.

Speaker 3 And he said that there are a lot of generic drugs that were in short supply and kids can't get their medicine and this and that. And I'm like, well, what can we do about that?

Speaker 3 And he's like, well, I want to do this thing called a compounding pharmacy where we can make those drugs, right?

Speaker 3 And so.

Speaker 2 And he's like, I wanted to start a compounding pharmacy where you guys can make those drugs.

Speaker 3 Make those drugs that are in short supply. I'm like, that's cool, but it's not thinking big enough.

Speaker 3 So I'm like, let me look at the pharmaceutical industry and the drug industry and see why so many people can't afford them and what's going on.

Speaker 3 So I looked at it and it was really obvious really fast that there's no transparency, right?

Speaker 3 Because nobody, you know, just like you don't know when you go in, you know, for your MRI, like doctor says, Theo, you need this medication. You have no clue what the price is going to be.

Speaker 3 The next question always, what pharmacy are you using, right? They're not saying, can you afford it or anything, right? So We decided to create this company called costplusdrugs.com.

Speaker 3 And if you go to costplustdrugs.com and put in the name of a medication, we don't have them all. We have about 2,500.
We'll show you our cost, our actual cost that we actually pay for it.

Speaker 3 And then we mark it up 15%.

Speaker 3 And then there's $5 shipping and handling to send it to you. And then $5 for our pharmacy.
Or if you pick it up locally, it's $12. So the pharmacist makes money.

Speaker 3 And because of that, because of that transparency and only marketing up 15%,

Speaker 3 our prices are dramatically lower. And when the insurance companies are trying to rip people off, like there's a drug called a Matinib.

Speaker 3 And if you don't come to us or some of the better pharmacies smaller pharmacies you might get charged two thousand dollars a month for us it might be twenty one dollars a month i had a buddy who takes this drug droxodopa and um i didn't know what the fuck it was right a friend of ours emailed me and said landing can't get this because droxodopa yeah i don't know what it is it sounds like a drug right sounds like a free safety friend right right

Speaker 3 um and so he's like he can't you know he lost his insurance and they're going to charge him ten thousand dollars every three months i'm like that's crazy crazy so i'm like let me see what we can get it for and go ahead go to cosplustdrugs.com and put in droxodopa and 64 for the three months and yeah you don't need to show that part yeah go to

Speaker 3 yeah so go to see all medications and then droxodopa

Speaker 3 Now it's $14.

Speaker 2 Put some Nicorette on there, dude. You got the lights out of it.
Droxodopa, so now it's $14. So you guys, because you're able to make the drugs yourself?

Speaker 3 No, because we're able to buy them in volume, and because we only mark them up 15%.

Speaker 2 Well, why doesn't our own government do that to help us?

Speaker 3 Well, they're starting to now, but see, the problem was we publish our prices and we put out a price list. Before we came along, nobody else did.

Speaker 2 So you're creating the fact that other people are now going to have to do that. Right.

Speaker 3 So now people see our prices and they're like, okay, millions of people are just going to costplustdrugs.com, right?

Speaker 3 And the doctors are like, fuck, droxodopa, $14 instead of this other place wanted $3,000 plus a month. We're going to cost plus drugs.

Speaker 2 Are all your drugs cheaper?

Speaker 3 I'd say 99% of them are. Yeah.
Every now and then there's one where we're not cheaper. But every time we get, as our volumes go up and our prices go down, we pass it on.

Speaker 3 So literally, we've lowered our prices on every weekday since last August. I guess it's been over a year now.
We've lowered our prices.

Speaker 3 We've had some drug that has come in that we've been able to lower the price on. Wow.
So anybody out there, you, your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your grandparents, right?

Speaker 3 Whatever drug you take, if you're paying, you know, more than 15 bucks out of pocket, go to costplustdrugs.com, put in the name of it, and see if we're cheaper. I mean, literally, it's crushing it.

Speaker 2 Right. That's all it does.
That's all it takes to check it out. It's just to go there and do it.

Speaker 3 You just do it, right? So like if you have a deductible, we might be cheaper than your deductible and it's cheaper to pay cash with us.

Speaker 2 Now, can people run into problems? Say if they're not supposed to get certain drugs, is it easier to get those drugs through you guys?

Speaker 3 No, no, no. You still have to have a prescription.

Speaker 2 No, no, no.

Speaker 3 We don't do any controlled substances.

Speaker 3 okay yeah huh wow man but how does our government how does the government allow you to be able to do that well they can't stop me right because it's just free market stuff there's they like why that is happening no they like it right so now i'm talking to the harris campaign and i'm saying look if we just do this transparency you guys can buy the same way we do right and so there was a thing from the ftc who went after all these things called these pharmacy benefit managers and just threw them under the bus and sued them but they used our prices right now there's research in the lawsuit yeah yeah there's research from like vanderbilt and harvard saying if the government if medicare bought at our prices they would save billions of dollars a year right i mean literally immediately if some there's people out there that are struggling with their prices um what they pay they switch to us they're going to save a fuck ton of money and they can just do that but it's their own choice they don't need their doctor's approval to say well they need to get a prescription to send okay so let's still need a prescription right you still need to get but the doctor doesn't determine where they just usually say what your local pharmacy can say and you just tell decisions.

Speaker 3 Right. And so you just say, you know, send it to Cosplustrugs.com.
So in the system that the doctors use to create the prescription, it lists us there and they just click on it and it's easy. Wow.

Speaker 3 Yeah. No, it's insane.
It's insane. Like literally, we only started June, I mean, January 19th of 2022.

Speaker 3 So we've only been around a little bit more than two and a half years and we're just changing everything.

Speaker 2 Is it publicly traded or no?

Speaker 3 No, no, no, it's private. I funded the whole thing.
Damn.

Speaker 3 Negative. Because I don't want to have to worry about making people money.
Yeah. Right.
Because we're losing money now. Not that much, actually, now.

Speaker 3 But it's more important for me to fuck things up. Right.

Speaker 2 Oh, so you like the fact that you're changing the industry?

Speaker 3 Fuck yeah. I love that.
No, no, because to me, that's always the most fun, right? So you got all that. I mean, the healthcare industry, right?

Speaker 3 If, you know, what's the one thing you want to go down in history for? I fucked up the healthcare industry, right? I made it so people could afford their health care, their medication.

Speaker 3 And so, you know, that's what we're doing with pharmaceuticals and medications.

Speaker 3 We're also working on cost plus wellness, which will deal with and kind of push out those insurance companies because most people like get their health care through their employer.

Speaker 3 And most employers, particularly the big ones, self-insure, meaning they pay for all the costs out of pocket.

Speaker 3 And they don't realize how the employers, the CEOs of those companies, don't realize how badly they're getting ripped off.

Speaker 3 And so we're out there working on new programs now so that those employers will figure it out. We're starting with my companies and then we'll extend it out to other companies.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just crazy that I feel like it just needs overhauls of things, you know? And it's not that hard.

Speaker 3 This is like, this is the easiest industry I've ever disrupted because all we had to do was publish our price list. Right.
Because everybody else was hiding everything, right?

Speaker 3 You talked before about shit happening behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because you go into the doctor, you go into the hospital, you sign something that says, I'm going to pay whatever you

Speaker 3 want to charge me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure. And then you assume they're going to charge you the amount that...
the fairest amount because they are the fucking hospital that's supposed to take care of you.

Speaker 3 You would think so, right?

Speaker 2 And then they don't. They charge you

Speaker 3 whatever they can.

Speaker 2 But why do they do that?

Speaker 3 Because they're getting fucked by the insurance companies. Got it.
Right. And they know that if you complain about the price, they'll reduce it.
Right.

Speaker 2 So, but then you have to, you're already sick. Now you have to spend

Speaker 2 17 weeks of your life. Right.

Speaker 3 Dealing with that shit, right?

Speaker 2 Arguing with someone who's been trained how to argue against you.

Speaker 3 Exactly, exactly right. And that's what you're doing.

Speaker 2 In another country most of the time.

Speaker 3 Actually, some of it's here.

Speaker 2 A lot of medical building is here.

Speaker 3 Yeah. But then you ask.
No, if you're calling in, yeah, and it's over there. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 But then they feel horrible. Then the person arguing against you, the person who, the employee, feels horrible because they know that they're fucking you over.

Speaker 2 They're fucking you over, but they're just trying to make your money to go.

Speaker 3 On the hospital side of it, right? The hospital has to have way too many employees to deal with the insurance company.

Speaker 3 And the insurance company says, okay, we know this is what we're supposed to owe from when Theo took his kid in there, right? But we're not going to pay you the full amount.

Speaker 3 If you don't like that, sue us. And then they sue them.
So now they have to have a shitload of doctors, right?

Speaker 3 So what we're saying is we're going to these places and saying, we're going to do a contract. We're going to do just cash, right? So there's no fucking around with the insurance companies.

Speaker 3 And we're going to publish all of the contracts so that everybody can compare notes and figure out the best way to do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, that was, I mean, there was an executive order that said that they have to do that, but it's not being enforced.

Speaker 3 Well, they do a little bit, but like we said earlier.

Speaker 2 Not at a level where it's helping, where people are like, they should have a commercial. The government should buy a commercial every week that runs 100 times that says right now you have to

Speaker 2 Trump administration announced historic price transparency requirements to increase competition and lower health care costs.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they said, so they said I think for 100 of the millions.

Speaker 2 So something not good that Trump did.

Speaker 3 No, it's good. No, I'm not saying Trump did everything bad, right? But this is one of the good things he did.

Speaker 3 But yeah, this is one of the things I think back then it was 100 of the top services. Now it's 500, I think.

Speaker 3 It's growing.

Speaker 2 It's growing. That has to do it.
Right. But how do we enforce it? That it's not being enforced.

Speaker 3 Well, so

Speaker 3 it's not so much enforcing that, right? Because if they put up shitty prices, it doesn't matter. If you show prices that are too expensive for everybody, you know, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 And so you want to be able to have

Speaker 3 the whole contract published so that everybody who's responsible for paying not only sees that price, but how it got to that price.

Speaker 3 And then people can create software and apps and this and that that can truly help you because most people do have some kind of insurance, right?

Speaker 3 Like only 11% of people don't, or they have high deductible plans.

Speaker 3 And if you have a high deductible plan, you don't quite know what you're going to end up paying out of pocket anyways, even if they tell you that it's only $750 for the MRI or $250 for the MRI, right?

Speaker 3 So that's that's an important part of it, but it's that much of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just interesting. It's just tough that you have to figure out how am I getting screwed all the time.
It's brutal.

Speaker 3 It's brutal. But that's the opportunity for me, right? Because Paul Rivera pills will be like, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 3 Dude, that's good.

Speaker 2 A couple quick questions before you get out of here, man.

Speaker 2 Why did you sell the Mavs, just so people know?

Speaker 3 Kids,

Speaker 3 it was time, more time with my family.

Speaker 3 It was just, you know, and the fact that to compete, which probably was as important to family, in order for me to compete, you got to generate more revenues.

Speaker 3 And when it was technology and media, I knew that shit cold.

Speaker 3 But now it's like building casinos, building, you know, you see what happens with the Titan Stadium and all the shit they put around it, right? That's not me. I'm not a real estate guy.

Speaker 3 And I don't want to have to learn. I don't want to have to put up $2 billion to figure out if I'm doing it right or not.

Speaker 3 And so I brought in a great partner, Patrick Dumont, and the Adelson family, who are big Trump supporters.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 they're just better at it than I am. And so I thought that put the Mavs in a better position.
And it didn't suck that I got all that money.

Speaker 2 Oh, selling it, you mean? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, I still own 27%, and I'm still involved.

Speaker 2 So it's a win-win. Was there another team that you wanted to buy recently? What about a WNBA team?

Speaker 3 No, not really, because it was more about just spending more time.

Speaker 2 So that's just another.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because there's a lot of pressure, right? Because if I want to do it, I want to win, right? And I still, like I said, I own 27% of the Mavs. Right, Right, that's fun.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's still big time.

Speaker 2 That's enough fun. Yeah.
How much did you pay in fines during your NBA time?

Speaker 3 Three, four, five million.

Speaker 2 I have no idea. What was your biggest fine?

Speaker 2 Fuck.

Speaker 3 I think it was $600,000.

Speaker 3 So I grew up, like I told you, grew up in Pittsburgh, and my biggest basketball crush was Julius Irving, Dr. J, right? And so he had me.
Oh, wait, was, oh, that was, you know, that was bigger, right?

Speaker 3 Okay, so we rested these guys. This is 750,000.
Yeah, so I forgot about this one. And so the end of two seasons ago, we weren't going to make the playoffs and we rested our best playout players.

Speaker 3 And even though every other team had been doing it, they fucked with me and fined me for 750 grand.

Speaker 2 Damn. Because why? Because fans are coming, the best players should be on the court?

Speaker 3 No, not necessarily. I mean, because like when a team is bad, they will do what they can to get a better draft pick because that's how you're going to get good.
Oh, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 3 So we weren't going to do it. And they said we waited too long, right?

Speaker 3 Like other teams might tank halfway through the season they might tank three quarters of the way but because we did it with three games left they thought that was wrong i was pissed when i got that one dude i would have been jesus christ i would have been pissed and sleeping outside uh because i won't i would have yeah i would have been living outside then um

Speaker 3 uh

Speaker 2 was there one player you always wanted to get that you couldn't get i mean i was like shaq

Speaker 3 shaq was always like come get me come get me

Speaker 3 i have a house in dallas come get me

Speaker 3 i tried shaq

Speaker 2 oh that'd been fascinating having Shaq over there.

Speaker 2 I've heard you talk about crypto a lot. Do you think it's a big part of our future or do you not? I think it can be.

Speaker 3 I think we don't know for sure yet. Okay.
I think on one hand, Bitcoin is like the new gold, right? Because it's easy to own.

Speaker 3 It's easy to use apps to deal with it and everything.

Speaker 3 And I think that's a huge plus as opposed to gold where you've got, it's just more difficult to deal with and ain't nobody going to carry a brick of gold, right? If shit hits the fan. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 3 What are you going to do? Hey, this is my gold. You know, not going to work.

Speaker 2 A couple brothers might actually, dude. I know one of my dogs.

Speaker 3 Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I know a couple of dogs roll around with a brick, maybe, but yeah.

Speaker 2 But it's just going to create controversy.

Speaker 3 Different kind of brick. I'm talking about gold.

Speaker 2 But yeah, people would be trying to attack you for it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, right. So I see Bitcoin as having a good future, right?

Speaker 3 I think there's a lot of good reasons. I think Ethereum and some of the other ones are dependent on the applications built around them.

Speaker 3 So like there's DeFi, which has a real place so that people can easily trade, borrow, loan money, and make some money or save, you know, borrow money.

Speaker 3 I think that's been around a while and that works okay, but it's kind of a stable app.

Speaker 3 But we really haven't seen that app that's like the Instagram app, right? Like when iPhones first came out or the App Store first came out, right?

Speaker 3 There was no one app, right? Then Instagram came along, Snapchat came along, and then the app store blew up, right? There was apps, apps, apps, apps.

Speaker 3 We haven't seen that one app that everybody has to use. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Not for, yeah, for crypto. And when that happens, it'll it'll make it a lot more common.
Right. It's a great point.
I really thought about that.

Speaker 2 What's something on the radars that nobody's seeing right now?

Speaker 2 People are talking about AI and Ozempic prices and, you know, women selling illegal Ozempic outside of vineyard vines and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it's happening.

Speaker 2 And people are talking about the border and politics. But what's something that you think gets on your radar that's like a big issue that nobody's talking about?

Speaker 3 I think it's more AI than people realize. Yeah.
Yeah, I think AI is going to go a lot further. I mean,

Speaker 3 as processing speeds go like that and the capabilities of AI go like that the context wins all this other bullshit.

Speaker 3 You have a kid?

Speaker 2 I don't have any children. Oh, I thought you have a wife.
I will have one one day, but I don't have any. Yeah, I got to get a wife.

Speaker 3 Yeah, first things first, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so, like, if you just had a kid tomorrow, let's just say, right?

Speaker 3 And you start collecting all the videos and pictures and things. And over time, it turns into emails and texts.
You're going to put that all in AI.

Speaker 3 And your little kid, when he's seven, eight years old, is going to have an invisible friend. That's an AI.

Speaker 3 It's some crazy shit that's going out.

Speaker 2 Oh, because it'll be all the information you'd want him to know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly right. Right.
And can talk to you when you're not there instead of them just going on Instagram or whatever, Snapchat. It's going to be like.

Speaker 2 Like you could be, so say you could take like a, say there was like an orb that went into your child's room, like an actual thing you plugged in, like a thing,

Speaker 2 a fixture, and you could load in through AI, like put in these 20 books, this orb should have this knowledge of this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Yeah, it won't even be an orb. It'll be somebody that looks like a somebody.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see what you're saying. So, an actual figure, it could be even a hologram of someone.
And if my child has any questions, they can ask.

Speaker 3 And now, fast forward 40 years where you're taking all the stuff about the child, right? Right.

Speaker 2 And so, putting that information in as well so he'll know how to best relate to the children.

Speaker 3 Every memory in our ever heard when we were at that part. Right.
Or, you know, tell me, when was that time I went with dad to there? He is, right?

Speaker 3 And then when he hits 80 and dies, or 100, let's say and dies, right?

Speaker 3 You've got that, that fake Joey, little Joey, right? Who just died and lives forever. It's going to be insane.

Speaker 2 So you'd be able to literally, as you're laying in bed at night, you could turn your grandparents on on the wall through some sort of a projector machine.

Speaker 3 And talk to them like they're still there or a hologram. Yeah.
It's going to be insane.

Speaker 2 Was there ever, I had an invention, dude. Did you ever have an invention that you wanted to get done, but you never had the time?

Speaker 3 Not really, because I'm not that creative. Really? Yeah, I'm creative business-wise.
But what's your, what's yours?

Speaker 2 I used to think that they, like 15 years ago, I started thinking, well, what if they had on your dashboard, you could put in something, like a CD or something, and on your dashboard, a hologram, the band would perform on your dashboard.

Speaker 3 It'd be a little bit of a distraction, but it would be a dude. It'd be a little distraction, but I thought it would be so dope.

Speaker 2 And you can make it over by the packaging.

Speaker 2 But imagine if like a little boost here.

Speaker 3 You can do that shit now. You can do that shit.
See, I'm just one.

Speaker 2 That was one thing I thought.

Speaker 2 And then I thought if they had a dog collars that, because there's a dog that kind of howls behind my house a lot, if you could synchronize them, you get the neighborhood or regional, you get them all the same collar, and then

Speaker 2 they synchronize and it makes them

Speaker 3 come on Shark Tank then.

Speaker 3 But like

Speaker 2 organized, like, you know, they would do it like...

Speaker 3 So you know where he's at by the

Speaker 3 so no, that's cool, right?

Speaker 2 So if you have a hole, like that dog and another dog down the street, the collar would have them both howl at the same time. So you would have almost like

Speaker 3 a little symphony of dogs. The symphony.
That's funny as fuck, yeah.

Speaker 2 If you can do that regionally. So you say you're on their porch, you're relaxing with your wife, you're sitting there in the swing, and you could just program a little, you know,

Speaker 2 some Beethoven, and then all the hounds started heating up. Yeah.
Oh, that's a thought that I had.

Speaker 2 Right before you go, if there's a young guy who's out there, what's the best advice you would look back and honestly give yourself?

Speaker 2 I know it's such a generic question, but we have a lot of young men on who listen to our podcast who are curious about what's something they can do to hedge their bets for the future and to best take care of themselves.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, find, I think, like, I was the same way. Like, you always think, oh, this is not the job, right? You know, this is not where I want to be.

Speaker 3 And I got fired or quit or did a bunch of jobs, right? And I think if I were going to do that again,

Speaker 3 I would try to be a lot, I'd try to be really good at all those jobs, right? Because A, when you get really good at something, that opens up doors for you, right?

Speaker 3 Even if you're flipping burgers, right?

Speaker 3 If you're the best at it, someone's going to recognize it, right?

Speaker 3 And if it's not the boss you have right there and then, like dude fires you or whatever, you're going to, you're still going to be good for the next one, right?

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 3 And when you learn how to be good at something, then you can learn how to be good at other things.

Speaker 3 And then, because the hard part really is finding something you'd love to do that you can be great at, right? Because you never thought you'd be doing podcasting, right? No.

Speaker 3 And you're great at it, but once you find it, right, that's when the shit happens.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. It took me years to figure it out.

Speaker 3 It takes all of us years to figure it out, right? You know, I...

Speaker 2 Right. And give yourself some grace that you're figuring it out.

Speaker 3 You don't have to figure out shit when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. You don't know shit.

Speaker 2 Just don't get somebody pregnant and and have a good time.

Speaker 3 Right, right, right. Don't get thrown in jail.

Speaker 3 Yeah, don't do shit that's going to hold you back.

Speaker 3 And then I'd add, be curious, right?

Speaker 3 Because the more you learn, the more doors open up for you. Be agile, right? Be able to

Speaker 3 bob and weave when the shit hits you, right? Because it's going to, you know.

Speaker 3 And again, if you just can find something you can be really good at, no matter what it is, nobody quits anything they're really good at.

Speaker 3 That's a great line. Because that's when you get that satisfaction.
I'm the best motherfucking whatever it is. Right.
And somebody's going to want to pay me because I'm the best. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and somebody will. And a lot of, yeah, like, cause you, yeah, once you start having employees, you start looking for better employees in different spots.

Speaker 2 And then I bet it becomes a problem, people trying to poach your employees. Has that ever happened?

Speaker 3 Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course.
And you just got to, you know, try to connect with them better. And, you know, I mean, look, I'm horrible at hiring people.

Speaker 3 And so I always try to get somebody who's good at it because I'm a a softy, right? Theo, yeah, it's, you know, Theo sells me on why he wants the job. You'll be great, Theo.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, yeah, I heard you say an interview one time, you said, get on the job, learn it for three months, do the, be the best fucking person at it.

Speaker 2 And then at six months, if you are the killer at it, it might have been a sales job, but go into your boss and say, I need a higher percentage, but I'm going to go do this.

Speaker 3 Fuck yeah, right?

Speaker 2 See, it's a good strategy. It's good.
It's just good to have that mindset. If you work hard,

Speaker 2 you can figure it out.

Speaker 3 And if you can learn to sell, you always have a job.

Speaker 2 Oh, selling so hard.

Speaker 3 It's not, though. Like I was like, I started selling when I was like 12 years old.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, then you have it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I always looked at it like, okay, I'm just trying to help somebody.

Speaker 3 Whatever I got, like I sold garbage bags door to door. I sold magazines.
And I remember, you know, Theo, look, I'm selling you this, all these five magazines for $10 a month.

Speaker 3 You know, when you tell your wife you spend $10 a month on the education and enjoyment of your entire

Speaker 3 that puts them in a position to get better grades at school, you know, she's going to thank you for it. Yeah.
Sign that shit up, right? So if you just look at it as helping somebody.

Speaker 2 That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point.
If you don't think of it as I'm selling, if you believe in what you're selling too, probably.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, that sure helps, right?

Speaker 2 But you should sell a full alphabet up to people in Pittsburgh, dude. Because they're only using half of it up there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 There's people up there only using half of it.

Speaker 2 Rumor you wanted to buy Fox News. Is that going to happen?

Speaker 3 No, that was all bullshit, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, somebody asked me

Speaker 3 if you could, would you buy X or

Speaker 3 Fox News? I'm like, I can't afford it, but if I could, I would. But yeah, I'm not trying.
No, that's bullshit.

Speaker 2 There's a rumor that you wanted to build an entire city in Dallas, like a new city from scratch.

Speaker 3 No, no, I bought a city. Oh, you bought a city? I bought a town called Mustang, Texas.
If you got any ideas, They'll bring them on. Really? You got a whole city over there? I got a whole town.

Speaker 3 It's not a city, it's a town. It's got like no people, right? But it's like 75 square miles

Speaker 3 or acres rather. And

Speaker 3 I got an idea.

Speaker 3 A dude i played basketball with was dying of cancer and it um said that his only real asset was this town it's the only personally owned town in the country in the um in the state and one of the few in the country and

Speaker 3 like old old friend and i'm like okay marty i'll buy it from you so it was like 1.9 million dollars so now i own my own own town one of my other basketball buddies is like the mayor and goes down there and keeps it up to date and everything so if you got any ideas and people live there it's empty no it's pretty much empty it is yeah there used to be a strip club that burned down and then we tore all that down.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 2 Do you lease it out for movie sets right now?

Speaker 3 I would, but I haven't even really tried. Right.

Speaker 2 You got to get it figured out. Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
I'm going to keep that in mind. What would I do with a dang town?

Speaker 2 I don't know. It's your daughter's birthday coming up you see?

Speaker 3 Coming up. Yeah.
Nice.

Speaker 2 How old is she going to be? She's going to be 21.

Speaker 3 No. 21 in Nashville.
It's going to be brutal.

Speaker 2 Do you feel a responsibility to throw a big party for her? Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. That's where I'm taking advantage of, you know, what I can take advantage of.
So it's a little bit spoiling her, but she deserves it.

Speaker 2 Is she an

Speaker 2 what's something you really love about her?

Speaker 3 She's just got a great spirit. She's feisty as hell.
She's smart.

Speaker 3 She's loving.

Speaker 3 And she's got a sense. She's she's got a sarcastic sense of humor.
So she's always giving me shit, right? Yeah. Which is cool.
I like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Somebody's got to give Mark Cuban shit. Somebody's got to give us all shit.

Speaker 3 But that's what they say. That's what my kids always say.
Someone's got to give you shit. So that's all they do is give me shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a pretty generic first statement, too. Like, well, it doesn't have to be you.

Speaker 3 Right? Not my family.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Dad, you're the worst driver.
Dad, you're the worst this. Dad, you're the worst that.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 Oh. See, I got to tell you, I enjoyed this.
This is totally different than any other interview I've ever done. Yeah.
Oh, really? I enjoyed it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, it's cool to hear that you like being a dad, Mark. Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I appreciate it, Mark. Cuban, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks, Theo.

Speaker 3 Really appreciate it. I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be

Speaker 3 cornerstone.

Speaker 3 Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of mind I found I can feel it

Speaker 3 in my bones

Speaker 3 But it's gonna take

Speaker 3 a little bit