E533 Mark Cuban

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Today's guest is a business mogul. He's an entrepreneur.
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 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 Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you a story you Cuban.

Good to see you today, Mark.

Thank you so much. Really, really an honor.
No, the honor's mine, man. You've been crushing it.
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 I think luck has kind of met us along the way, you you know? I take luck every time, man.
Will you? Oh, hell yeah, right? Has luck 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— 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? But if you want to have a bee next to your name, you got to have a lot of motherfucking luck. Right.
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? It's called AudioNet.
We started in 1995 when nobody knew what streaming was, right? We called it internet broadcasting. And so we started out a second bedroom, my house just to 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, if you want to listen to Dallas sports or news from anywhere in the world, come to this website, audionet.com, 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.
Oh, so that's how you started, and this is a loose term. I know you've done other things, but so that's how you started to make some money yeah no that's when i got that's when i crushed it when you when because that's when the dot coms like yeah if they had oh man it was it was sandals.com sold for like 20 million yeah no it was insane right it was insane and so but 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 the first to do basketball, football, baseball, you name it.
First ones to stream anything, right? And then went public, great. And then we sold to Yahoo.
And then Yahoo fucked it up. But that's another story.
Oh, Yahoo bought a lot of things that they fucked up. Can we say that? Yeah, you can say that.
Yeah. Because it's true.
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, it was blogs.
People did blogs on it. 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.
They bought all these different companies that at the time were huge. Yeah.
GeoCities. That's what it was.
They bought that before us. GeoCities 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, no, Tumblr. Oh, Tumblr.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, Tumblr was hot.
Then it went porn, right? Did it go porn? I'm glad I got out. Yeah, porn for a little while.
And then this dude I know, Matt, bought it, right? And so now he's just trying to make it work. Oh, trying to refinesse it? Yeah, 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. 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?

It's not like people don't use it.

Yeah.

They just haven't been able to get ahead of the game.

Yeah.

They had some stake in Alibaba too, that company.

Yeah.

And that's where they made some money, right?

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. I mean, hell, they were paying me.
So obviously they were- So they made one smart move, right? Yeah. When were you there? I was there like maybe 2010 or something, 2004.
Yeah. Cause I'm too close to 2000.
So you were there like- 2014 or something. I was there actually.
Who was the CEO when you were there? Do you remember? It was a female CEO.

Oh,

they had just got her in actually.

what the fuck was her name?

She was cute.

Actually.

I never got a close up look at her.

Oh,

well,

yeah,

but I,

yeah,

I met her one time and I wish I'd met her more than one time.

That's all I remember.

Marissa Meyer.

Yeah.

Marissa Meyer was great.

Uh,

but they had another lady too.

That was work or that worked kind of over us in the video department. All this Diddy stuff going on, man.
What do you – I'm sure glad that I didn't hang out with him, right? You never got into – you never were in his universe. I've met him, right, but never went out, right? 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.
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? 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.
And I hung out enough in LA, but I never really heard stories about the parties or anything like that. That was my scene.
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. I mean, and you would think somebody would say something.
How do 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 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, is it scary when people get to a level of wealth that they can kind of have anything? Like what is some of that? I don't look at it that way.
Right. I'm not saying either, but I'm just curious about it.
Yeah. What are the options? If you're rich as fuck,

what can you do and get away with? I don't hang out with people like that. I always looked at it

that my high school buddies are still my high school buddies. My rugby teammates in Indiana,

my Indiana buddies, those are my friends. I lived six guys in a three-bedroom apartment

when I moved to Dallas. Those are my friends.
It's not like, okay, I'm getting the butlers.

I'm going to golers, I'm getting the chauffeur and look at me, right? And I came by myself. I don't give a shit about that.
Yeah, no, you seem, yeah. Yeah.
I was kind of wondering, I was like, how will he show up? Will a stork drop him off? Yeah, right. Yeah.
Like, how's he going? Yeah, but, but that doesn't mean it hasn't crossed my mind, right? Yeah. It's just like you have to be – in order to do shit like Diddy or anybody like that, you have to be so paranoid, right? You have to try to think of every base to cover, right? And, you know, now part of me wishes I'd done it because there's too many pictures of me out drunk with my friends and shit like that, right? Yeah.
But 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. I just was happier when I was rich.
And so I don't get that whole thing of, you know, like just be protective and like play the rich game, right? That's just not my style. Yeah.
That's kind of it. I think play the rich game.
Like, but do you like, do you see people like, do you ever like, cause 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? Do you see that that could, that, that infects some people? Like you ever witnessed it? Yeah, oh, for sure, right? So people who think because they're rich, they're smarter, that they have more privilege, they can get away with whatever they want.
Yeah, particularly in business, right? So if you talk to somebody that may be richer than me, who will say shit that's just crazy, and think, okay, because I said it, that's what's up, right? It's right, right? Or more likely though, in my experiences, like I'll get invited to these parties, right? That have a really nice house and stuff, right? But there'll be like 50 servants, right? Five people to answer the door, six people that just specialize in toast, right? Just ridiculous shit, 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.
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. And 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? 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. 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.
I'm supposed to have this type of car. 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, China or whatever. Gold toilets.
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? Mm-mm.
Dude, I remember when I first got a clean lady to come once a week, I helped her like the first month. I felt horrible.
You got to get a heated toilet seat. That's like going to be wrong.
Yeah, I don't want my butt getting used to too many fancy things. I'm like, I feel horrible.
You've got to get a heated toilet seat. That's like- Yeah, I don't want my butt getting used to too many fancy things.
I'm just telling you. Really? I'm just telling you, right? That's the one, huh? Oh, I can almost imagine it.
Because I go from, when you travel, right? You leave home and you're comfortable. Yeah.
And where I'm staying now, right? No heated toilet seat. First thing I know is you sit down in the morning and you're like, fuck.
You're like, this could be better. It could be better, right? I'm paying all this for this room and my butt's cold.
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. Oh my goodness.
So I just kept staying up as much as I

could. I still spent a little money, wasted some of the money sleeping, but it was nice over there.
Yeah, I just, I think it's interesting when people get to love, like you would see it sometimes with the Romans or something, or I don't know you would see, 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. Is that a word? 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. Yeah.
That was the movie where it was. Yeah.
With all the sex and everything where they didn't see everybody was your concubine, right. Male women doesn't matter.
Right. Everybody was just fucking everything because they could.
Yeah, I think that's something that's- Yeah, my wife's not going for that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There weren't a lot of, yeah. Once you put a wife in there, things change.
It's over, yeah. 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.
So, oh, so it might activate proclivities in you for something. Yeah, no, like with the Romans, yeah, their proclivities were to fuck around and have fun, right? Yeah, 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.
And I don't know what I'm saying either, but I think that's something, I wonder, that 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, what they just wanted.
They've already had as much of like regular sound. I wonder if it starts to build on it.
Like what can I do next? Right. What can I do? What can I get? Yes.
Right. What can I get? What else is possible? Yeah.
Like, not so much with sex, right? Because you're going to get fucked over by somebody at some point, right? Well, can you imagine having to keep all of the, like, trying to just, even if you ever, like, I've cheated in relationships. That's hard enough, you know? Just knowing, like.
What's next, right? Yeah. Or just knowing, like, I have to make sure we never go in this area or what if this girl like that one thing alone i can't imagine the level of like paranoia yeah you just i mean is it worth it yeah but i mean look i'm not gonna say that forget not sex necessarily but just like going out and trying new things right 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, that's a dream.
Oh, when I sold my first company, I bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines. 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. 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.
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? 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.
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? Who can buy the biggest bottle of champagne, just rent a club, who can run up the biggest bill, right? Yeah, I was doing that shit.
Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I think that's what I think some people like if you get so, like some people get so powerful or like there's a lot of gay folks out there, I think that they only veer into that or change, get into different sexual, like 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 or there's people like financial gays power gays there's like i haven't heard that before oh really no financial gays and power oh yeah it's so rich they can afford to just be gay for anything they want yeah or like blind gays and power gays? Oh, yeah.
The people that get so rich, they can afford to just be gay for fun. Just fuck anything they want.
Yeah. Or like blind gays.
There's even... There's...
People that are blind, they don't care as much if gay or straight leaves their... I had one guy walk up to me sometime.
He goes, I want to suck your dick. This was years ago.
Yeah, yeah. And 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.
Well, let's practice with someone else. 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 there. That's something that you would hear sometimes at church.
But no, but I, 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? It's not as important.
Yeah, because you can't see one way or the other. And so 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, that's their, that's who they are.
But then there's some people that. 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? Well, I don't think, I think it was hard to talk about it.
Well, Bernie Sanders, I could have, yeah, the Romans were gay, right? I don't know. Well, I was just, cause I, 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. I think there's things that lead people like- Like if you want to push limits, right? Right.
Pushing limits. That's what I'm thinking.
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. Right.
That's just going to backfire so hard. Because if you're not like real, the people that are, you know, you're messing with, they ain't going to be real either.
It's just going to be a disaster. Yeah.
That's what I'm thinking about with the Diddy thing. I think it's just like 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 thing. 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 like weird yeah like i'm taking videos of everybody and this and that um yeah 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 i have no idea yeah i really don't yeah yeah um Sorry.
It's just like something that's been on kind of the topic of news. Yeah, for sure.
No, it's an interesting subject, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Cause you wonder like, and I wonder, cause I mean, I've met the guy and I've seen him out. Yeah, I met him one time too.
But it's just like, how does he 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 the norm. 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 i 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 oh that would be a nightmare, man.
I feel lucky I'm not living

that way. Yeah.
But to me, the telltale sign is he fucking hurt people, right? He hit women, right? He dragged that one lady down the hall. Yeah, it's obvious.
That tells you 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? But it's a whole nother thing to physically abuse people. that's just like

yeah that shit

yeah and it's like

how do you not have

your own

yeah

yeah

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yeah right it's another thing like okay i'm throwing a big party right but it's a whole nother thing to physically abuse people that's just like yeah that's shit 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 your own sense of self can probably get skewed pretty easy yeah something's fucked up obviously yeah i mean um what are some of the effects of being, 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.
Yeah. Nothing that I can tell, right? 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.
That's a good point, man. I'm friends with John Leotow, Jimmy John.
He had the Jimmy John's Sandwich Company. And he said he, one of the reasons that 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, I mean, like I've been sued five times my whole life, right? And four of them were because someone just trying to get money. Wow.
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? They won't let me off the hook because I'm the deep pockets.
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.
So one thing people don't realize, you probably have to be extremely cautious. Yeah, and then for your kids, right? Because it's not their life, right? There's just, you know, they inherited us, right? And I mean, it's not necessarily bad, but it's not necessarily easy either, right? 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?

Oh, that's true, right.

You know?

And so I know that puts a lot of pressure on my kids.

Yeah, that's such a bummer.

Yeah, yeah.

But at least you're able to communicate with them about that

and have them just be cognizant.

Yeah, like I 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 fucked up and their parents get mad. You fuck up.

It's on the front page of the paper because you're my kid.

Yeah.

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

Is it hard to be 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, you're a recognizable person. Yeah.
was it ever weird with your kids where you felt like

my kids are never going to feel like I'm theirs

because I'm so feel like I'm

theirs because I'm so, because I'm also in a way belong to other people? Yeah. All the time.

Man, that's all the time. Cause 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. I just wanted to be

normal. Yeah.
Right. And it breaks my heart.
Right. Yeah.
I can imagine. Yeah.
But I understand too.

right I understand right

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with all my kids

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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 Yeah Yeah so that's another side effect Of some things that people don't see Yeah I'm I'm just curious about it. We were trying to get this therapist who works mostly with really wealthy people on to learn more about that.
Because when I was growing up, I always looked at wealthy people like, fuck them, let's bomb them. Let's bomb them.
Okay. We didn't have any bombs.
We didn't have any bombs, but we was- Let's bomb them. Okay.
Look, we had to have a plan okay we had no my god we had no strategy but we just we did we just keep playing video games but yeah but in the back of your mind you're playing gta but we had like yeah but you you it almost gave you an enemy when when when you were growing up poor it gave you this like not an enemy but it gave you like a uh yeah kind of can relate, right? It's not like my family had anything. My dad did upholstery on cars.
Neither one went to college, et cetera. But no, I remember vividly 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, this sounds so crazy, listening on the radio about how these prisoners were going to get all the college education they needed, right? And I called into the radio station. I'm like, I'm 16.
I don't have any idea how I'm going to pay for college. And they're paying for prisoners? That's just wrong.
Yeah, you're like, so now I've got to commit a crime. Yeah, right? To go, yeah, put me in jail, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a whole other conversation. What is something that you admire about each one of your children? Oh, there's so much.
Is there? There's so much. Yeah, they're different too, right? But as they've gotten older and becoming real people now and teenagers, they're smart.
They're caring. They're funny.
They're ambitious in their own way for different things. The hard part about raising three teenagers is that they do all they can to ignore us, you know? Oh, it's a good point, huh? Yeah, just like, I mean, our family's no different than, you know, any other parents raising three teenagers, basically, right? Because those kids want to have their own identity.
They want to become themselves and find out who they are. And, you know, we're trying not to be those hover parents, right? That are just like, and give them some freedom.
I'm like, I'm like, I'll go. I'll know your curfew is this, you know, told him what time he goes, he texts me back.
Let me breathe, dad. Let me breathe.
I'm dying. Right.
Oh my God. Like he's George Floyd or something.
No, not that bad, right? But just like, you know how kids talk, right? Right, right. Oh, yeah, let me breathe, dad.
Yeah. Because I always give them shit about like Gen Alpha, like vernacular, right? Oh, yeah, slide twin.
Like you always say all this stuff. You don't even know what's going on.
Sigma, Ohio, right? Sauce, mid. Yeah, they sound like Peyton Manning trying to make audibles at the line.
Right, right, right, right. Omaha, Omaha, right? Sigma.
It really is funny. I'll text my nephew and I don't even know what he's saying at the time.
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.
You try to lean into that. Is there anything that you had before you were wealthy that you wish you could have back? Privacy.
Yeah? Yeah, for sure. 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 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 like i was walking in nashville yesterday't that a song, right? Walking in Memphis.

Memphis, that's right.

Thank God.

Yeah.

Nashville's better.

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, and it was dark, right?

And I'm here, Cuban, Cuban.

I just keep on walking, right?

It's just like no privacy whatsoever.

Yeah.

But it could be worse.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, I'm not complaining. I'm just curious if they're like, what's one of the biggest things? Let me think about where we're at right now.
So we've talked about some of how you got started. I'm having 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? Yeah. Yeah.
And this is a conversation too. And I think I like that about you.
You make this feel like a conversation. Yeah.
Yeah. Why not? Yeah.
No. 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've been a good business? Yeah.
I mean like when you're just getting started, sometimes what you don't know is good, right? Cause it doesn't hold you back. So now, cause I've been doing, 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? 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? Founder mode.
And now like investing, I kind of look for that, but I'm more conservative in how I invest, right? Because, 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? 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 personal goals that's a win yeah yeah when it comes to chart tank are you going to miss doing it yeah i'll miss it some right but again goes back to my kids like we shoot two weeks in june two weeks in september just finished right my last run and um 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 it's 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, they set the schedule. 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. She's going to rowing camp, right? My oldest daughter's going,.
My youngest son is going to basketball camp. They're setting the schedule, and I have to be available.
I can't make them be available. Oh, that's a good point, huh? Yeah, because when they're a little younger, you kind of get to set the stakes.
You control everything, right? They're just little plebs, right? Yeah, yeah. And now they're the ones that really get to choose what's going on.
How would you rate the sharks out there? Put the sharks in order for them. 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. 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.
And she'll be right. And she 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. Kevin's Kevin.
He's kind of the bad guy of the group. Robert is into pets and kids and stuff like that.
Lori is into consumer products groups. Damon is the people shark, right? He's trying to help, you know, smaller businesses grow.
And then me, right? And I just try to fuck with all of them and just have fun. I wore mine the other night.
They were comfortable. They were sleek and they were just, oh, they felt good on my body.
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When it comes to business, how do you know? Yeah, I'm trying to think if I would have had an idea on Shark Tank, what I would have taken in there. Well, what made you decide to get into the podcasting rule? I went on Joe Rogan.
Well, I had done some podcasting and one day i went on joe rogan's show and he and on his we just talked more as a long talk and i was like 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 and i say that a lot but i literally took my kitchen to my dinner table and just made it where the studio was and that became the studio. 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, 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.
And so, well, what, so, but then there's a business to it, right? So, oh, well then the business, how did you deal with it? Yeah. How'd you deal with the business side? Right.
Well, one, one day, a guy who sold pizzas, um, in Santa Monica, my friend Thomas, he, um, he said, he, he emailed me. I didn't, he wasn't a friend at the time.
He emailed me and he said, Hey man, I want to start just a cold email. Yeah.
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 uh-huh i don't want to that's cool yeah but then he's like no you don't see it he said if you can do this next step and use that 500 bucks to get your studio then you're it's going to do better and that was something that's really been a blessing because i mindset was just different.
I had more of a scarcity mindset. Right, right, because you needed the $500, right? As opposed to growing the business.
I'd rather have it in my bank account for some sense of safety. Yes, and use it as an investment.
And then once we did the first studio and then that kind of evolved from there. And you just kept on growing it on your own or did you bring in people to do the sales? Yeah, we had an advertising company that stole from us for two years.
That was horrible, yeah. We lost like, I mean, we probably had over two years.
I don't even know. It was at least 400 grand that got taken.
Fuck! I know. But you learn a fucking lesson that way, don't you? Yeah, I learned.
So, you know, we're similar, right? So here, how did the pizza dude get your email? I'm not sure. Oh, because we would put a contact number in case somebody wanted to reach out about something from the show.
Oh, you did? Because like I've done a bunch of deals from people just cold emailing me. Yeah.
Like I did. I gave this company, this dude's out of Dallas, Tim Ellis and his buddies, 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. 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. No way.
Yeah, Relativity Space. And they're space guys? Yeah, these guys.
Yeah, that's Tim, right? I'm an ex-Blue Origin intern who got a $500 check from our Cuban to build a major SpaceX rival. Wow.
Yeah. We're coming for you, Elon.
Oh, I know. So what their deal is they build the rockets out of three, using 3D printers.
So you just, 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.
So I got lucky, you know, but like helping them have some, yeah, I just got them started. Right.
Like Tim, the pizza guy the pizza guy did for you, right? Or Tom the pizza guy, right? Yeah, Thomas. Yeah, and so like sometimes just making yourself available opens a lot of doors, right? And it's helped me a ton.
Yeah. Who were your mentors? And then how do you differentiate between listening to mentors and trusting your instincts kind of? I never had a mentor.
Really? Not a mentor guy at all. I always wanted to try to figure it out myself.
I've always been like super curious, like just somebody who loves to learn. Yeah.
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? And then I would try it and try it and learn and learn and learn.
Yeah. And then once started, you realize whether it's business, software, whatever, once you get that base, it's like learning the podcasting business, right? 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.
And so I was always just, I'm going to 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 Maybe that's not fair But that's where I'm at But not if you're still going You know I mean right now You're mentoring your family You've already said that You're choosing to take That extra time That's more important It is Especially now If I can get them to listen Yeah It's crazy dude How your own kids Have Mark Cuban in the kitchen It're like, let me breathe, Mark.
I'd be like, you want me to help you with this business idea or your project at school? No, no. 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. I'm like, okay.
It's crazy that no matter who you are, you're still just dad. 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.
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, 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 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 and just taking him places and then tell him and my mom, They can just go wherever they want, whenever they want, and do whatever.
Cool, huh? Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Made you feel good? Oh, yeah. Fuck yeah, right? I mean, all they did with my dad, up 6 o'clock every morning, work at 7 a.m., come home at 6.
Hard worker? Oh, fuck yeah. Lost an eye in an accident.
So like if you had a- Damn, one-eyed worker. One-eyed worker, right? Goddamn, dude.
So already. Behind the eight ball, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like you do upholstery in cars. Behind the eyeball.
Right, yeah. Oh, it's so gross, right? So he was like when the first time.
Dude, my dad lost a finger, dude. Did he really? Yeah, I just remember that.
You just remember that. Yeah, dude, it made us scared.
Oh my God, yeah, that's my dad. And is this when he had both eyes or one eye? Well, no, he had one eye, right? This is when he had one eye.
He lasted when I was like 11. And you can see they're not quite the same, right? 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 look like apricot jelly behind there. It was so disgusting.
That's wicked, bro. 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 anyway cool no it wasn't cool at all he um 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 yeah it was not wow yeah yeah and it was tough um yeah but he's a fighter that's wild is your father still alive no both my parents died a few years ago oh i'm sorry yeah so yeah was it um was it tough to have so much control and 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 i'm sure anybody. Yeah, I mean, my dad was 92 and my mom was 85.
So I had good runs, right? Yeah. But yeah, it's still tough, right? And you expect it because my dad had struggled for a while.
My mom got cancer. And my mom's so insane, right? 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 she wanted.
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. I'm like, come on, mom, we can help you.
I don't care. You can find some over in Sidney Park.
Right, in Sidney Park. How do you know Pittsburgh? Oh, dude, I got pink eye over there.
The first time I ever eye i got it in pittsburgh you get pink eye a lot no only had it probably three times that's a lot though but somebody goes somebody in pittsburgh said i'll never forget this oh you got some dime time in your up that time right yeah you go down time hang out the side side they said you got some dime time in your up time and i was Pitt guy, dude. Yeah, Pittsburgh accents are the worst.
Oh, the worst and the best, dude. The worst.
You see like some lady like just wearing a fricking Jerry Olshansky jersey or something. Just like, it's just the, Pittsburgh.
No, the best is when you see some really hot, so like I obviously don't have a Pittsburgh accent, right? And you see a really, really hot girl in Pittsburgh and she'd be be like, yeah, you're going downtown, hang out in the South Side? I'm like- Dang, dang, dang. Dang, dang.
What's your car? Yeah. Oh, my God.
Dude, Pittsburgh. There's no place like Pittsburgh.
I love it, right? It's gotten a lot better from when I was a kid. I love it.
It's one of the best places. There's that movie.
What's that movie where there's a big wedding in the beginning of it? Is that Deer Hunter? No, is that? Yeah, Deer Hunter was filmed in Pittsburgh. Yeah, and it's all filmed right there.
Pittsburgh, if it didn't, and with the landscape, it's one of the more beautiful cities. It doesn't get enough credit because the winters are pretty harsh, I think.
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 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.

I love it there.

It's a tech town.

Yeah, I love it.

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.

That's cool. That's cool.
I used to work as a bartender. WDVE.
Is that the station there? No. What is it? WDVE.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's funny as hell. Yeah.
Yeah, man. I really have a, I love that place.
It's good people. You worked where there, you said? Yeah.
I worked at a bar called Chance's R and in Oakland. And that was my summer job when I was in college.
And Oakland is kind of the downtown area? No, Oakland is where the University of Pittsburgh is. Okay, bet.
They're playing pretty good this year. They had a good win the other day.
You mentioned Elon a little bit ago. I know you guys have like, I don't know if it's a feud.
What is it you think? It almost seems romantic a little bit. Yeah, I just like to fuck with him, right? I mean, because it's like- He loves being on Twitter too.
Oh, it's his thing, right? That's a good point. Yeah, it's his thing.
I guess if I'd have paid 40 something billion for something about hanging out around. Yeah, he'd pay 44 billion, you better hang out.
It's like, why do I go to the Mavs games, right? You know, 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? And so, like, I'll tell you my one little Elon story, right? So I didn't get to know him, but I helped him with something or tried to help him.
And so I had his number, and I texted him a couple times. Like, he had a kid, and I'm like, congrats on your 97th kid.
And he texted 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 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.
I'm like, okay. So that's- A text with the article that what? That I said something that wasn't completely, totally positive about Tesla.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay.
what that's what the article was about right so he was just like fuck you 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 he buys twitter right and then he starts getting real political right yeah 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 called me poop emoji multiple times. He calls me all these names.
And so to me, that just gives me license to fuck with him even more. I don't care if he calls me names.
I don't give a shit what he thinks. But it's still fun just to hit him with the LOLs or whatever.
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, Twitter, it's just such a bizarre place. It really is.
I wish they would take a lot of the pornography off of there. Hardcore, right? How they get away with all that shit? Because you only have to be 13 to go on there, right? 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.
Oh, yeah. That kind of stuff is, I think, yeah, I wish that we didn't have that.
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.
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?

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 so thin, how can you not fuck with him?

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah, I think, well, yeah.

I mean, Twitter's definitely a place where, is it real? Is it not real? I don't know. It's always been interesting.
I feel, I kind of, I was happy that he bought it though. I mean, I feel like he kind of rescued it because I feel like a lot of the mainstream media and the social media platforms, they seem all pretty left-leaning, right? 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 anchors or whatever.

Who are the most left-leaning big celebrities in media today?

Well, I guess you probably have, like, Don Lemon, I guess. He got fired.
He did? Yeah, he got fired from CNN. He's gone, right? He ain't got shit going on.
Oh, damn. When life gives you Don Lemon, let him go.
Right? But you get the point, right? I don't know. There's no big names.
But CNN, I think a lot of the mainstream media has been notoriously kind of left-leaning. I think it's working.
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. Yeah, for sure.
That was wrong. It got like, if you were like conservative or Christian, I feel like those people get the brunt of shit a lot of times.
Yeah, I'm not going to argue with that. But I guess my point is, in 2016, it was different.
TV was still up here. Getting 9, 10 million viewers a night for a TV show was okay.
And so whoever was on 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. But for every Rachel Maddow, there's Sean Hannity, there's Laura Ingraham, there's all the hosts.
And then you've got Ben Shapiro's, you've got all these right-wing, the Tucker Carlson's. And so the bigger stars now and the bigger media presence is on the right.
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? In 2016, if you went on and talked about Trump positively, you would get shit on. Oh, you couldn't say anything.
If you were even a conservative, you couldn't even ask a question. Right, you would get shit on, right? It was very scary.
Right. 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 my, my reference, 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 that.
Well, Jews aren't from hell. That's crazy, dude.
No, it's all crazy. But at least look at the history, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, look at a map.
No, it's insane. 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.
You do? Yeah, and I think now, I mean, look, you had President Trump on here coming on here saying his piece, right? And we would have Kamala on. Yeah, I'm sure.
And I'll put in a good word for you too. Yeah? Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I think it would just be interesting to talk to her. No, she's smart.
She's fun. She's easygoing, right? Laughs a lot, but she's chill.
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? I mean, socially, I probably am. Physically, I'm conservative and I'm an independent.
I don't belong to either party. I don't give a shit about either party, you know, but I'm a Harris fan because I'm not a, you know, I like her policies.
I've had some influence in her policies and I'm not a Trump fan at all. Used to be, but they kind of grew out of it.
Have you, yeah, what do you think made you grow? Like that's interesting term, like grew out of it. You know, I would, once I came out saying I was for him, right? Oh, you had come out and said that? 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 to- Right, that's how I felt. Yeah, because- I would have elected a fucking donut in there 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, um, in my memory, things that came up right just this morning, I was looking at it and it was like, he sent me a text.
I'd done a CNN interview. Who, 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.
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? You can't just talk, you know, at some point, all these things are important.
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.
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, when he asked me to help about healthcare, I showed up because country over party. And I would do it again if he wins, but I hope he doesn't.
Yeah. Have you donated to the Harris campaign? No.
I haven't given money to any candidate pack, anything 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.
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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Do you feel like whoever gets in to be president that they actually are, do they just spend their time paying back lobbyists? Like, it just feels like we're so far away from the days of like maybe ronald reagan or i'm trying to think of somebody else like george no uh uh gerald for i don't know it just seems like we've like we've just become this american to me feels like this kind of shell company for bigger.

Bigger. See, I think there's some of that.

I mean, in a negative way, I still 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?

You know, it's a great point because some of the issues are so complicated,

they can't learn all of them, right?

Of course. Yeah.
Yeah. Like whatever it is is right um but at the same time i think i think what a lot of people are missing is that everybody all politicians learn from donald trump and how he won because 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. It was no longer the Republican Party.
That's a great point. I never thought about that.
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.
So, you know, who knows what would happen against Vivek or Nikki Haley or whatever. Oh, that's right.
They didn't have to debate this year, huh? 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. 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- Yeah, that wasn't super democratic probably. 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?

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

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.

So all this shit about, well, Kamala Harris didn't get a single vote, right? Don't matter, right? And tell you what kind of dweeb I am, right? And nerd, like I literally looked up the bylaws of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention. And they both say we basically, in a nutshell, we get to pick the candidates the way we want to pick the candidates, period, end of story.
Wow, So either so, because kind of on both sides, it seems like the, the, the, that Kamala and Donald have just been put in, right? So neither one of them kind of practice like. But it don't matter, right? 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.
Now who's in charge of those, each of those businesses, businesses the parties? Donald's in charge and the thing I was saying about learning from Donald now Kamala's 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's was like, fuck that, right? I'm doing it my own way, right?

And so Nikki, 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.

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.

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. You know, 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, 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.
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? Now, some people might argue Bernie Sanders really is pulling the strings, but he ain't, right? 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.
No, he's not, right? That's the whole point. Right.
It seemed like, you know, whatever. Right.
Because she's in the center. So you're saying you believe that she's doing her own thing.
She's definitely doing her own thing. Like she like she says, here's my core values.
Right. I want I want taxes to be fair.
I want to, you know, lower taxes for the middle class. Right.
I want to bring people up and make sure that they have opportunities, right? I want to try to do what I can to continue to reduce inflation and costs, you know, and I don't want to be negative, you know, whereas Donald is negative a lot, right? And so you hear talking about joyous and uplifting and all that stuff. Oh, I see, I see.
Right, 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.

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.

And you haven't heard her criticize,

like Hillary Clinton fucked up, right?

Because you nailed it, right?

She was talking shit, the deplorables and all that. 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? 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? That's a great question. Okay, so when she came in, right, and got nominated...
Because you kind of don't know who she is. That's like you hear, you see.
So then you start to just believe clips because it seems like you don't get a breadth. So now that comes down to this great question, right? Because I asked the same question, and here's what they said to me.
They go, Mark, there's probably 1% of the electorate is high information. So electorate, say what it is? Yeah.
So 1% of the electorate, people who are voting. Okay.
So 1% 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. 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? 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. 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.
She went from being further behind than Biden because people didn't know, actually potentially at least break even if not leading in some cases, it's working.

So why doesn't he just turn around?

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?

Yeah, I guess.

I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, I just wish to, yeah, it feels like you'd want to get

to know her a little bit better, you know, just to learn a little bit more about her.

Well, what do you want to know about her?

That's a good question.

I guess for me, I always want to know what somebody's really like, you know, and at least

Thank you. a little bit better, you know, just to learn a little bit more about her.
What do you want to know about her? That's a good question. I guess for me, I always want to know what somebody is really like, you know, and at least get it like, so just to try to get an idea of that.
And then also you like, I think I can understand why a lot of people vote for Trump, you know, because, you know, he's had a history of being involved in a lot of shady business, right? And that's why they vote for him? Well, because America has become what it feels like to a regular person. It feels like I am just a peon in a bigger shady business.
It feels like- That's interesting. That's really, really interesting.
Yeah. So then it then it feels like, like, yeah, our water's dirty.
There's our kids are, you know, parents are boiling their own water now at home because they feel like that water's not safe and it's causing kids to have autism. Our, our, our, you know, our drugs, people have to spend all their money on drugs.
Like, well, I'm fixing that. So I'll get to that.
Yeah, I want to get to that. But yeah, one of the largest causes of bankruptcy is medical

debt in this country. There's a huge shell game insurance scam going on between hospitals and

insurance providers and big business. But just look at that, right? Those shady things you

mentioned, he tried to fix. I literally went to the White House to talk about healthcare and the

that I'm doing.

And he wanted to talk about how we saved $35 billion on Boeing aircrafts. Right.
Couldn't have a conversation about it at all. Yeah.
And maybe some of that stuff is evolving with him. I don't know.
But i think my point was that it's gotten to the point where

you'll 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 well that is the 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 fucking me so much that at least he's my criminal. Let me, he's my criminal.
He is a criminal. He's my criminal.
He's my criminal. Right.
Yeah. Or, but yeah, because they feel like this other thing is such a, it's 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 contracts. No, I'm telling you about, yeah, I'm telling you people I know, right? He, like Barbara Carcoran, she said something about this from Shark Tank, right? He hired her or asked her to sell a bunch of condos in a new building that he put up.
And she did. Sold everything she asked.
He offered her $4 million. He wouldn't pay her.
She had to sue him just to get her money. But how does somebody benefit by behaving like that? When that's the only, you know, I mean, he was born rich, right? He's never had to find his, you know, Damon.
Oh yeah. He's always had good hair, dude.
Rich people always have clean hair. I remember.
I don't know about that, but, um, um, just call me Becky. Um, yeah, there you go.
Well, she likes him as a salesperson, but down in there, talks about how he ripped her off. 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.
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.
If you're, okay, if you're a billionaire, right, all of a sudden, you just made a billion dollars. 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, is it like, so you mean like one of those- You're like the commemorative coins? Oh, commemorative coins, yeah.
Right, that you see on the late night. They sell 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, dude. He's selling sneakers.
Oh, that's gangster, bro. But why, if you're rich, selling sneakers, NFTs? Donald also has a, you know, he has a very, look at this shit.
Those things are hype as fuck, dude. And I wish I would get a pair 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, I like the guy. 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 in the United States again, right? Totally different.
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? And that's the difference.
And if you want to, I don't think we need to keep things in gangster mode. I don't know.
That's why she's talking to me, right? I mean, that sounds stupid, right? But like fixing healthcare, right? She's not saying, okay, this lobbyist or that lobbyist. She's like, how do we fix it, right? What do we do to make it to save people money? You's the difference.
And I understand completely if you think everything's gangster, the deep state and all this shit. But to me, that's just playing the victim.
You mean by believe in that sort of mentality? No, when he does it. When he says it's the deep state.
He was fucking the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. 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? I mean, you know, if it's gangster and fucked up the way you say, and maybe it is, right? Maybe I just miss it.
It feels like it. 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? But, I mean, it ain't going to get un-gangster.
It's not going to get better if you put in a gangster, right? 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.

One interesting thing that he did,

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.

The question is, does he become more gangster

or more legit?

Right.

What do you think?

I don't know.

It's a good question.

That's the thing.

I wish I knew a little bit more about how he thinks and is.

And that's the toughest thing is being a regular voter.

It's so hard to get to know how somebody.

But that's the exact same thing you said about Kamala, right?

It really is.

Right?

Because when he.

Look, again, I don't hate him.

I really don't hate anybody.

Yeah.

Right?

I 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? You deserve a lot of credit.
He deserves a lot of credit.

Yeah, I wish he would have talked a little more about it.

I think it's hard to get into some of his emotional side with him some.

Yeah.

And I wish that it was maybe a little more possible. But he's an older guy, senior citizen.

Yeah, it's harder for that.

And I don't know him.

But 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, in your stuff. 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.
So you want to, 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, that a lot of the problems it's not they used to use of like usual like uh mexican migration that comes up to help with farming and stuff like that and then it's just gotten out of control and then now it's gotten really out of control um so i think his state like him saying that we want to close out or make it be like appropriate ways that that affects people's safety no i agree right everybody wants safety right and i think biden fucked up no question about it he waited too long to do anything about it um 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 um and she has already said she wants to sign the border bill that the republicans put out there, right? Not build a wall, but shut it down even further, which I think- So even further than a wall? 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? 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? So I agree with that, that it's a big deal. But he also said he just wanted to deport everybody.
How the fuck do you do that? You're just going to walk into somebody's house. Hey, I know there might be somebody who may or may not be illegal, 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? But they're not all, not all their families are illegal.
Mi gente, yeah. Yeah, and so if your family's getting dragged out the front door, what are you doing? Right.
Right? And he gets the National Guard or the local cops just start dragging people out, putting them in a bus and send them. How do you think their community is going to respond? 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? You 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.
And what I'm saying is if it's, let's just say he decided 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? He hasn't given any real details how he would do it.
And what I'm saying is, if it's, let's just say he decided it's against Jewish people. Just pull it out of left field.
I'm not saying he is, he's not going to, right? That's happened to us before, right? And in a country where there's this many guns, people are pulling out their guns, right? And I don't know, but I'm thinking if I'm Hispanic and I have a brother-in-law or somebody, my father, whatever, who's illegal, and they're just coming to my front door, I'm not just letting them take him and just say, thank you very much, give me another. 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.
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.
Right, that just sounds like more, it sounds like a boast and not like what is the actual practice. Right, more gangster, right? 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, you know? And there's Americans doing the same shit too, right? Right.
That's a good point. But I'm not trying to make excuses for them, right? Get the motherfuckers out, but follow the law to do it.
Tell us how you're going to do it. Right.
That's a good point. Yeah.
Donald doesn't have much of a, he's not very finessed when it comes to the emotional comfort of how something's going to sound. Well, just respect the law.
Otherwise, shit could hit the fan in a bad way. Yeah.
But the fact that people have come in lawlessly, it feels like- Biden fucked up. No one's changed.
No one's saying he didn't. Yeah.
Right? He let too many people in. That could have been the Bernie Sanders side of him, right? I'm not saying he did the right thing.
Yeah. Right? But you are where you are, right?

So the only question is, how do you fix it?

Right.

And just saying-

Great point.

You are where you are.

You are where you are.

The situation is the situation.

When that company, Cast or whatever it was,

fucked you up, you were where you were.

Yeah.

And you just had to deal with it.

Yeah.

Right?

You could sue.

You could do whatever.

You could follow the law.

You did what you had to do, right?

It's the same with this, right?

You are where you are. And if he's going to get people out which you should he's not saying i'll follow the obama model but instead of three million people deported it's going to be 11 million right let's hear the practice more right because otherwise when you have 300 million 400 million guns in a fucking country people aren't just going to say take my brother brother.
Thank you very much. Right.
Yeah. 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 done? You got to tell us how you're going to do it, right? 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? 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? Kama's saying, okay, here's the program, right, that we got from James Lankford, whoever the guy from Oklahoma, I think it is, for this Republican bill.
I'll sign it, right, because this is a problem. She hasn't said how she's going to deal with deportations.
That's something that she should asked i don't know the answer i don't know where her head is on that but i do know that if you go more gangster on this that it could escalate to get worse you think yeah wouldn't you i don't know i don't know i hadn't thought about it like that exactly you know i hadn't thought about that what are the actual practices of it you know dude hires dude hires people illegals in mar-a-Lago. Yeah.
Right. 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.
Right. And they're not doing like, they're not doing these jobs, right.
They're doing, you know, the shitty jobs. But most of the people that are coming over now, it's gotten so much more out of like people just coming over to work and send money back home 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 deport them, right? 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.
Oh, I see. Right.

Yeah.

That's not the way it works.

Yeah.

I mean,

yeah,

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.

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

Yeah. They send them back.

They come right back over.

They send them back.

That's fucked up.

Right.

So we have,

obviously we have to do better.

Yeah.

And there used to be a program where families got to sponsor somebody that was coming over back in the day. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know where that is or what's going on. 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.
You know, it's like, that's how my grandparents got in the country. Yeah.
They came over from the ukraine and all over the fucking place right it was either either be killed where they were or get your ass over here right right i just think we're in a tough space in this country where it's like people are struggling with addiction people are struggling with home ownership we're dealing with you know less marriages than ever like the family unit is broken people are scared know, 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 how do you think you fix that?

I don't know.

And I think it's a lot to think that one person could be the person that

does it.

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 leaders are 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 Jr. You're not? No, not at all.
Yeah. Yeah, because of the healthcare shit.
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 getting rid of unprocessed foods.
He helped sign a law in California to get all these dyes and shit out. So I'm in agreement there.
Yeah, that's one thing I love about him. And clean water, just trying to clean up the environment, you know? clean up the environment you know with that yeah those are the things that i love those are the things that i only really know that he does 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 that's what makes a market right that's okay people can disagree and you need somebody to say this is you needed a you needed because half of america was like this feels like 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 say what that that this feels like a that during covid this just feels like something that um we need to let it run its course through people instead of like going this such a,

like a kind of almost felt like a communist route

of like locking everything down.

Yeah, I mean-

It wouldn't have to go into that.

Yeah, 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-

Then you would have gotten sued too.

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 that. I was pro-vax.

Yeah. I don't know what I was vax on it.
I don't know. I mean, I guess, I guess I was probably

anti, I don't know if I was anti-vax. I just felt like, like they suddenly shut down all of the AA

rooms and shit. And that killed so many people because they couldn't go get meetings.
And you're

like, I'm going to die because I'm an addict and i don't my brother's 17 years sober so i went through all that shit yeah right so 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 back yeah right you think you can look right? Because in hindsight, everything's 2020, right? But when you're in the middle of it and people are fucking dying, it's scary as fuck, yeah. But that's the difference between leadership, like going back to leadership.
I mean, you nailed it. You need leaders, right? 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. Yeah, you don't hear a lot about who he's going to get to help him with each thing.
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? We don't think he's qualified to do this job. And, you know, so healthcare, you hear Vance mentioned some things, but what else, right? Deportations, you hear Donald say he's going to do it, but how, right? Can you name one thing that Donald said how he's going to do it? Yeah.
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 of them specifics about the policies. It's almost like they could both use a tune-up in some of that area.
For sure. Now, 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? I talk to their team three, four times a week via text. Yeah, via text, right? 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, when I talk to our 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.
Okay, we have a group that's looking at healthcare in general. Let us get your feedback and go.
I was talking to them the other day on Amazon. Did you sell anything on Amazon by chance? I never.
I bought stuff on there. Yeah, but never.
Okay. I found this on Shark Tank, right? So little companies that make headphones, right? 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? 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.
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? 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.
Can we do something together? Can I put something together? Like, yeah, put something together for us because you're right. We need to do it.
It's not right that China's 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, sell headphones right post it up just like like a patent you have to post your patent before it gets approved yeah right do 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 again in case you violate ip that's revenue for the country that protects our small independent businesses, right? 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? 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, 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 so you feel like with the Democratic Party that with Kamala's group that there's more organization 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.
But you don't think there is. Who do you think is going to, well, thanks, man.
Yeah. I like talking about that stuff.
Sometimes I get kind of scared to talk about it, I guess, because some, some things I don't know and everybody doesn't, nobody knows everything. Nobody knows shit can be a big picture, right?

Do you think, who do you think will win?

I have no idea.

I know.

That fucking crazy.

Crazy.

Do you think we still have a fair election process in this country?

Yes, absolutely.

You do?

Yeah, 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 since other things seem kind of like lobbyists are involved in everything and there's, you know, Bernie Sanders is saying we have more lobbyists than we have reps and senators.
That I believe, right? He said there's three lobbyists for every one of this. Like, well, then what, what's the real government? It almost feels like the lobbyist becomes real government.
But then you start to, just so I'll finish, Mark, but then you start to think that if all that feels so compromised, is the voting compromised? Yeah, I mean- You don't think it is? No, as a geek and having looked at a lot of this stuff, I mean, I'm not the ultimate geek in all this, but yeah, I'm pretty confident. And plus, they've been sued a thousand times.
All the states that Trump questioned were audited and had recounts. And notice, he didn't question the states he won.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point, huh? Right? So it's not like he didn't trust it, right? He just, and I remember going, I got invited by Clinton to one of the early debates in 2016.
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?

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

Yeah, I remember.

Yeah.

And so I did a movie actually, executive produced a movie called Good Night and Good Luck.

Got nominated for six Academy Awards.

Oh, yeah, with George Clooney. It was George Clooney, right? It was all about that.
Well, Roy Cohn was Donald Trump's mentor. And Roy Cohn, it was the guy who was defending the people saying, you're a communist, you're a communist, right? 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.
Everything Donald is doing is Roy Cohn part two. So you feel like that's a lot of his motivation that's a lot of his template yeah that's his template great yeah that's the right word template yeah i think a lot of people feel like the the 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 let's we'll fire anything know, 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 political landscape has gotten so- I would agree. Look, like when Biden was running, I feel differently about Kamala, but when Biden was running, if you had a non-MAGA Republican running, I would probably vote for them.
Right? You know, I just, and you nailed it, right? You said social liberal, fiscally conservative. Yeah.
The whole gangster thing, I think that's just wrong. 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 go. Oh, really? Yeah.
Jets plus three, dude. Yeah, right? Yeah, always.
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, the mafia, basically, right? In Pittsburgh and everywhere, they would allow you to pick a number. I don't know out of how many.
You think one to 20, you pick a number and you bet, right? And each number had different odds. And if your number got paid it's not like roulette that was it yeah that was more like we call it numbers right it was like roulette but somebody came and told you what the number was 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 not that they would him but they were just my my buddy's dad used to sit there with a little you know little souvenir baseball bats they give they give at games, a little tiny one? Pep, Pep, Pep.
And it was cool as shit sitting in his, you know, 1968 Buick Riviera. I thought it was badass as hell at the time.
Collecting numbers, dude. That's cool.
But the gangster shit, right? Yeah. Once a gangster, always a gangster.
And when it comes time to dealing with stuff, it's self-preservation first. That's the number one rule of being a gangster, isn't it?

Stay out of jail.

Keep your shit going.

That's not putting the country first.

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.

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? 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. And that's why it's fun to talk about and think about.
Yeah. No, just to have a good conversation.
No yelling, no screaming. And I totally respect your thoughts.
And I respect a lot of your insight too. And vice versa.
And vice versa. Yeah.
A hundred percent. 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 buddy, Zach, you know, but- Or just email me who reached out and I'll find out. I'll put in a good word for you.
Yeah. It'd be interesting, you know, just to, I think, cause 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.
Do you feel like running for office? Have you thought about it? Fuck no. I've thought about it.
Yeah. I even looked into it.
Yeah. But it's not going to happen.
Right. All the shit that they're going through.
Right. Like you just even mean on a human basis.
Yeah. On a human basis.
Like, why would I put my family through that? Right. Right.
And with Cosplus, I can have an impact. Right.
And I just think I can do more outside than inside. 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. I don't know.
I think people would love it. That would be me.
Oh, I just think people would love that. My wife would kill me.
Did you ever ask her what she thought? Yeah, my family voted no. No, you sat them down? Yeah, sat them down.
Four no, one yes. Oh, man.
Did you even try to lobby one of them to even help you a little? Well, my son got into it a little bit, but he was only like 13 at the time. So it was more.
Oh, damn. Yeah, I guess.
What moments, what is it the part of you that makes you feel like you would want to do or could do it? Because I just want to do the right thing. Right.
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.
I want to listen and be open-minded. And I think I've got approaches that have worked for me in the past, but also are getting results now, you know, like the cost plus drug stuff.
I know how to change industries, whether it was the streaming industry, HDTV, you know, movies, whatever it is, any industry I've gotten into, I've managed to kind of bubble to the top. 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 compliment my skill sets.
I mean, 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. Just so that's why maybe if you had an extra 15 years in your life, you would think about it.
Um, yeah they're still my family, right? It's a lot. Yeah.
I mean, when Clinton was president, the worst he did was try to smoke dope, right? And Obama- And he got that hummer, too. Yeah, right.
Well, yeah, but that was after the fact. He was already in, right? Yeah.
But- Yeah, 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, um, 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, to get elected, all you had to do was say, I didn't inhale.

Right.

Shit's totally different now.

Yeah.

Shit's way different.

You know, you got pictures.

Yeah.

Your kids were here.

You were there doing this, doing that.

It would put your family through.

Brutal.

Yeah.

Brutal.

So that's a big reason, really.

Do you think that keeps a lot of people out of it?

Yeah, for sure.

Wow.

For sure.

Thank you. doing this, doing that.
It would put your family through. Brutal.
Yeah. Brutal.
So that's a big reason really. Do you think that keeps a lot of people out of it? Yeah, for sure.
Wow. For sure.
It is. It's a scrutiny.
It's that media scrutiny that they have. I mean, look at Kamala, right? She was 30 years old, fucking a dude older, right? Or young.
She's in her twenties. Yeah, Montel Jordan or something.
Whatever, right? Just having fun. If it was me and you, we'd be like, let's go party with Kamala Montel, right? Let's go, go.
Let's go, right? And now, you know, all the shit she goes through. And that's not bad, right? But imagine that, you know, she doesn't, you know.
And even like her stepdaughter, the one who was a little, you know, that has all the tattoos and shit that they were giving shit to. Oh, I haven't seen her.
Yeah, only because. Oh, wait, I did see her.
Yeah. They gave her shit because.
Yeah, like. How she looks? Yeah, the tats and everything and all that and whatever.
Right, I don't remember all the details. Well, yeah, and remember the Barron Trump stories came out.
He has autism, he has Down syndrome or whatever. You're like, what are you talking about, dude? But I will tell you this.
When I went to the White House to visit Donald, he was rambling around talking- This was when he was in office? Yeah, and this was like 2019. He was like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And we were trying to talk about healthcare, but he went off in a bunch of different stuff. He goes, are you still on that show, Shark Whatever? I'm like, yeah.
He goes, Barron loves that show. I'm like, tell Barron.
And he goes, look, that's his favorite show. I'm like, tell Barron thanks.
And then I'm walking out. He goes, wait.
I'm like, what? He goes, that suit looks really good on you. That's who he is, right? He's going to give compliments like that and shit like that.

Yeah.

What was I going to?

Oh, I want to talk about the drug company you started.

Cospersdrugs.com. Okay.

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

Well, first, you tell me what's the best order for this.

Because we talked about the insurance, the scam that goes on between hospitals and insurers and regular people and then can you explain that to me and then tell me how your drug helps how the company helps so where we fit in all that okay so there's insurance well it's the best way to explain it there's drugs that you take and, and then there's what they call providers, the hospitals you go to, right?

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

The provider, right?

And then there's the payers, which are the insurance companies.

Okay.

And the insurance companies try to do deals with the providers, but they're not always up and up, right?

The providers, it's not the providers. It's just the insurance companies have all the leverage because they have the money, right? 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. But what I think people don't realize is almost everybody with healthcare, like where do you get your health care? Or do you just self-pay or do you have insurance? I have health insurance.
Through, do you know? I'm not sure, but it costs $400 a month. Okay, so it's probably the ACA, right? The Obamacare, right? But you have a deductible, right? And let's just say for the shits and giggles, that's $2,000 deductible.
For the hospital, even though this insurance company is going to pay anything above $2,000, you're responsible for that $2,000, right? And the hospital 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.
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. And so there's a lot.
Medical debt that the hospitals owe. No, that the individuals with the deductibles.
I see what you're saying. Right, 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. It doesn't matter that it covers above $2,000 because you can't pay the first $2,000.
So 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. And here's the insurance company not giving a fuck, right?

They're just saying that's your problem, not mine, right?

I'll pay you what I think I owe you, maybe, right?

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?

And so what we're pushing for with the Harris campaign

and in general is a lot of that happens

because there's no transparency.

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.

And so as a result, the biggest companies

have the most leverage and can fuck with everybody.

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 how bad they're here.
Power to the patients. You familiar with them? Yeah.
Yeah. There's a group out there called Power to the Patients that lobbies for price that you have to know how much an MRI costs when you go to get it.
Right. So that that way, if the hospital says the MRI costs $700, then the one down the street's going to have to say it costs $650, and they're going to have to start.
To compete, right. Right, and they're going to have to start to compete.
Right. And there's an executive order that says they have to do that.
Right. And that was a good thing that Trump did, but it wasn't enforced by the Biden administration.
Well, because the penalty is only like a thousand dollars a day. So they'd rather pay the penalty.
Right. Right.
And so like

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

Right. And a lot of them didn't even know.
A third of them didn't even know what the cash prices were.

Right. Wow.
So they're not being instructed. It's not.
Yeah. They just don't know.
Right.

Because 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.
So anyways, circling around to what we do, right? So I got a cold email, just like Thomas the pizza guy, I got a cold email from a guy named Dr. Alex Oshmiansky.
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? And he's like, well, I want to do this thing called a compounding pharmacy where we can make those drugs, right? And so he's like- So you wanted to start a compounding pharmacy where you guys can make those drugs? Make those drugs that are in short supply.
I'm like, that's cool, but it's not thinking big enough. 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. So I looked at it and it was really obvious, really fast that there's

no transparency, right? 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. 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. And if you go to costplusdrugs.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.
And then we mark it up 15%. And then there's $5 shipping and handling to send it to it to and then $5 for our pharmacy.
Or if you pick it up locally, it's $12. So the pharmacist makes money.
And because of that, because of that transparency and only marketing up 15%, our prices are dramatically lower. And when the insurance companies are trying to rip people off, like there's a drug called imatinib.
And if you don't come to us or some of the better pharmacies, smaller pharmacies, you might get charged $2,000 a month. For us, it might be $21 a month.
I had a buddy who takes this drug, Droxedopa. And I didn't know what the fuck it was, right? A friend of ours emailed me and said, Landon can't get this because— Droxedopa? Yeah.
I don't know what it is. Sounds like a drug, right? Sounds like a free safety for Alabama too.
And so he was like, he lost his insurance and they're going to charge him $10,000 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 and go to costplusdrugs.com and put in Droxodopa. And $64 for the three months.
Yeah, you don't need to show that part. Yeah, so go to see all medications and then droxedopa.
Now it's $14. Put some Nicorette on there, dude.
You just got the lights out of it. Droxidopis, now it's $14.
So you guys, because you're able to make the drugs yourself? No, because we're able to buy them in volume and because we only mark them up 15%. Well, why doesn't our own government do that to help us? 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.
So you're creating the fact that other people are now going to have to do that. Right.
So now people see our prices and they're like, okay, millions of people are just going to costplusdrugs.com, right? And the doctors are like, fuck, drugs are dope for $14 instead of this other place, one at 3,000 plus a month. We're going to costplusdrugs.com.
Are all your drugs cheaper? 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.
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. 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? Whatever drug you take, if you're paying more than 15 bucks out of pocket, go to costplusdrugs.com, put in the name of it and see if we're cheaper.
I mean, literally it's crushing it. Right.
That's all it does. That's all it takes to check it out.
That's it. 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.

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? No, no, no. You still have to have a

prescription. Like Percocets or whatever.
No, no, no. We don't do any controlled substances.

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 markets. there's they like that it's 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 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 there's people out there that are struggling with their prices, 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.
Well, they need to get a prescription to send it. Okay.
So let's still need a prescription. Right.
You still need to get a prescription. But the doctor doesn't determine where they just usually say, what's your local pharmacy? Right.
And you just tell it. Right.
And so you just say, send it to costplusdrugs.com. Yeah.
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.
Yeah. No, it's insane.
It's insane. Like literally, we only started June, I mean, January 19th of 2022.
So we've only been around a little bit more than two and a half years and we're just changing everything. Is it publicly traded or not? No, no, no.
It's probably, I funded the whole thing. Damn.
Because I don't want to have to worry about worry about making people money, right? Because we're losing money now. Not that much actually now, but it's more important for me to fuck things up, right? And change things.
Oh, so you like the fact that you're changing the industry? Fuck yeah, I love that. No, no, because to me, that's always the most fun, right? So you got all the, I mean, the healthcare industry, right? 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 healthcare, their medication.
And so that's what we're doing with pharmaceuticals and medications. We're also working on cost plus wellness, which will deal with and kind of push out those insurance companies.
Because most people get their healthcare through their employer. And most employers, particularly the big ones, self-insure, meaning they pay for all the costs out of pocket.
And they don't realize how the employers, the CEOs of those companies don't realize how badly they're getting ripped off. 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. Yeah.
It's just crazy that I feel like it just needs overhauls of things, you know? And it's not that hard. This is like, this is the easiest industry

ever. extend it out to other companies.
Yeah. It's just crazy that I feel like it just needs overhauls

of things, you know, and it's not that hard. This is like, this is the easiest industry I've ever

disrupted. Cause all we had to do was publish our price list.
Right. Cause everybody else was

hiding everything. Right.
You talked before about shit happening behind the scenes. Yeah.
Cause you

go into the doctor, you, you go into the hospital, you sign something that says, I'm going to pay

whatever you, whatever you charge. Yeah, for sure.
And then you assume they're going to charge you

the amount that the fairest amount

because they are

they're a fucking hospital

they're supposed to

Thank you. You would think so, right? And then they don't.
They charge you. Because they want whatever they can.
But why do they do that? 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.
But then you have you have to you're already sick now you have to spend the next 17 weeks of your life right dealing with that shit right arguing with someone who's been trained how to argue against you exactly exactly right and that's in another country most of the time actually some of it's here a lot of medical building is here yeah but then you know if you're calling in yeah there. Yeah, for sure.
Then they feel horrible. Then the person arguing against you, the person, the employee feels horrible because they know that they're, they're fucking you over.
They're fucking you over, but they're just trying to make their money to go home. The hospital side of it, right? The hospital has to have way too many employees to deal with the insurance company and the insurance company says, okay, we know this is what we're supposed to owe for when Theo took his kid in there.
Right. But we're not going to pay you the full amount.
If you don't like that, sue us. And then they sue them.
So now they have to have a shitload of doctors, right? 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.
And we're going to publish all the contracts so that everybody can compare notes and figure out the best way to do it. Yeah.
Well, that was, I mean, there was an executive order that said that they have to do that, but it's not being enforced. Well, they do a little bit, but like we said earlier, they- 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 a hundred times that says right now you have to, Trump administration announced historic price transparency requirements to increase competition and lower healthcare costs for all Americans, so they said, I think for a hundred of the most. This was something not good that Trump did.
No, it was good. No, I'm not saying Trump did everything bad, right? But this is one of the good things he did.
But yeah, this is one of the things I think back then it was a hundred of the top services. Now it's 500, I think.
So it's growing? It's growing. That has to do it.
Right. But how do we enforce it that it's not being enforced? Well, so 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. And so you want to be able to have the whole, the whole contract published so that everybody who's responsible for paying not only sees that price, but how it got to that price.
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? Like only 11% of people don't, or they have high deductible plans. 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? So that's, that's an important part of it, but it's that much of it.
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. It's brutal, but that's the opportunity for me, right? Because Paul Revere appeals.
dude yeah let's go dude that's good

a couple quick questions

before you get out of here man

why did you sell the Mavs

just so people know

kids

it was time

more time with my family

it was just

you know

and the fact that

to compete

which probably

was as important

a family

in order for me to compete

you got to generate

more revenues

and when it was

technology and media

I knew that shit cold

Thank you. to compete, which probably was as important as family.
In order for me to compete, you got to generate more revenues. And when it was technology and media, I knew that shit cold.
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.
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.
And so I brought in a great partner, Patrick Dumont, and the Adelson family who are big Trump supporters. And so 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.
Oh, selling it, you mean? Yeah. I mean, I still own 27% and I'm still involved.
So it's a win-win. Was there another team that you wanted to buy recently? What about a WNBA team?

No, not really because it was more about just spending more time.

Oh, so that's just another.

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, that's fun.

Yeah, that's still big time.

That's enough fun.

Yeah.

How much did you pay in fines during your NBA time?

Three, four, five million.

I have no idea. What was your biggest fine? Fuck.
I think it was $600,000. So I grew up in Pittsburgh, and my biggest basketball crush was Julius Irving, Dr.
J. And so he had me.
Oh, wait. Oh, that was bigger, right? Okay, so we rested these guys.
Oh, this is 750 grand. 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 players. And even though every other team had been doing it, they fucked with me and fined me for 750 grand.
Damn. Because why? Because fans are coming, the best players should be on the court? 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, right?

Oh, I see what you were saying.

So we weren't going to do it.

And they said we waited too long, right?

Like other teams might tank halfway through the season.

They might tank three quarters 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. Yeah, I would have been living outside then.
Was there one player you always wanted to get that you couldn't get? I mean, I was like Shaq. Shaq was my guy.
Shaq was like, come get me, come get me. I have a house in Dallas, come get me.
I tried Shaq. That would have been fascinating having Shaq over there.
I've heard you talk about crypto a lot. Do you think it's a big part of our future or do you not think it's a big? I think it can be.
I think we don't know for sure yet. I think on one hand, Bitcoin is like the new gold, right? Because it's easy to own.
It's easy to use apps to deal with it and everything. 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.
What are you gonna do? Hey, this is my gold. Oh, you know, not going to work.
Um, so I brothers might actually, dude, I know one of my dogs. Oh yeah.
I know a couple of dogs roll around with a brick maybe, but yeah, but it's just going to create controversy. Different kind of brick.
I'm talking about gold. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, people would be trying to attack you for it. Yeah, yeah, right.
So I see Bitcoin as having a good future, right? 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.
So like there's DeFi, which has a real place so that that people can easily trade, borrow, loan money and make some money or save, you know, borrow money. I think that's been around a while and that works okay, but it's kind of a stable app.
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? 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. We haven't seen that one app that everybody has to use.
Yeah. Not for, yeah, for crypto.
And when that happens, it'll make it a lot more common. Right.
It's a great point. I really thought about that.
What's something on the radars that nobody's seeing right now? People are talking about AI and Ozempic prices and women selling illegal Ozempic outside of vineyard vines and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it's happening.
And people are talking about the border and politics. But what's something that you think gets on your radar that's a big issue that nobody's talking about? I think it's more AI than people realize.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think AI is going to go a lot further. I mean, as processing speeds go like that and the capabilities of AI go like that, the context wins all this other bullshit.
Do you have a kid? I don't have any children. Oh, I thought you had one.
I will have one one day, but I don't have any. I got to get a wife.
Yeah. First things first, right? Yeah.
And so like if you just had a kid tomorrow, let's just say, 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, and your little kid when he's seven, eight years old is going to have an invisible friend that's an AI. It's some crazy shit that's going to happen.
Oh, because it'll be all the information you'd want him to know or whatever you want. 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- Like you could be, so say you could take like a, say there was like an orb that went in

your child's room, like an actual thing you plugged in, like a thing, a fixture, and you could load

in through AI, like put in these 20 books, this orb should have this knowledge of these 20 books.

Yeah, it wouldn't even be an orb. It'll be somebody that looks like a somebody.

I'll ask you. a fixture and you could load in through AI, like put in these 20 books, this orb should have this knowledge.
Yeah. It wouldn't even be an orb.
It'll be somebody that looks like a somebody. Oh, let's see what you're saying.
So a actual figure could be an hologram of someone. And if my child has any questions, they can ask.
And now fast forward 40 years where you're taking all the stuff about the, the child. Right.
Right. And so putting that information as well.
So he'll know how to best relate to the child. specifically.
Right, or things he remembers, every memory he ever had. I remember when we were at the park.
Right, or tell him, when was that time I went with dad to, there he is, right? And then when he hits 80 and dies, or 100, let's say, and dies, right? You've got that fake Joe, little Joey, right, who just died and lives forever. It's going to be insane.
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 projector machine and talk to them they're still there wow or a hologram yeah it's going to be insane 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 not really because i'm not that creative really yeah i'm creative business wise but what's your what's yours 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 it'd be a little bit of a distraction but it's cool a little distraction but i thought it'd be sewed up and you can make it over by the passenger just for them if like a little boost here. And you can do that shit now.
You can do that shit now. See, I'm just one, that was one thing I thought.
And then I thought if they had a dog collars that, cause 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- Oh, that's a cool idea. They synchronize it, makes them howl like a song.
So you put that together, come on Shark Tank then. Like woo, woo, put that together come on shark tank then but like organized like you know you could they would do it like so you know where he's at by the the um so no that's cool right so if you have 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 the whole like a little symphony of dogs symphony that's funny as fuck yeah if you could do that regionally so you say the porch, you're relaxing with your wife, you're sitting there in the swing and you could just put program a little, you know, some Beethoven and then all the hounds started heating up.
Yeah. Oh, that's insane.
That was a thought that I had. Right before you go, what's, if there's a young guy who's out there, what's the best advice you would look back and honestly give yourself? I know it's such a generic question, but we have a lot of young men 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.
I think I was the same way. You always think, oh, this is not the job, right? This is not where I want to be.
And I got fired or quit or did a bunch of jobs, right? And I think if I were going to do that again um I would try to be a lot I 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 even if you're flipping burgers right if you're sweet if you're the best at it someone's going to recognize it right and if it's not the boss you have right there and then like dude fires you or whatever you you're going to, you're still going to be good for the next one. Right.
A hundred percent. And when you learn how to be good at something, then you can learn how to be good at other things.
And then, cause the hard part really is finding somebody you'd love to do that you can be great at. Right.
Cause you never thought you'd be doing podcasting. Right.
No. And you're great at it.
But once you find it, right. That's when the shit happens.
Yeah. yeah, it took me years to figure it out.
It takes all of us years to figure it out, right? You know, I- Right, and give yourself some grace that you're figuring it out. You don't have to figure out shit when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.
You don't know shit. Just don't get somebody pregnant and have fun.
Right, right, right, don't get thrown in jail, get thrown, yeah, don't do shit that's gonna, you know, hold you back, right? But, you know, and then I'd add, be curious, right? Because the more you learn, the more doors open up for you. Be agile, right? Be able to, you know, bob and weave when shit hits you, right? Because it's going to, you know? 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.
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.
Yeah, and somebody will in a lot of, yeah, like, because once you start having employees, you start looking for better employees in different spots. And then I bet it becomes a problem, people trying to poach your employees.
Has that ever happened? Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course.
And you just got to try to connect with them better. And I mean, look, I'm horrible at hiring people.
And so I always try to get somebody who's good at it because I'm a softie, right? Theo, yeah, it's, you know, Theo sells me on why he wants to job. You'll be great, Theo.
And then, you know. Yeah, I heard you say in an interview one time, you said, get on the job, learn it for three months, do the, be the best fucking person at it.
And then at six months, if you are the killer at it, it might've been a sales job, but go into your boss and say, I need a higher percentage or I'm going to go do this on my own. Fuck yeah.
Right. So you need to get, it's a good strategy.
It's good. It's just good to have that mindset.
good to have that mindset. If you work hard, you can figure it out.
And if you can learn to sell, you always have a job. Oh, selling's so hard.
It's not, though. I started selling when I was like 12 years old.
Oh, yeah. Then you have it.
Yeah, and I always looked at it like, okay, I'm just trying to help somebody. Whatever I got, like I sold garbage bags door- door.
I sold magazines. And I remember, you know, Theo, look, I'm selling you all these five magazines for $10 a month.
You know, when you tell your wife, you spend $10 a month on the education and enjoyment of your entire family that puts them in a position to get better grades at school, you know she's going to thank you for it. Yeah.
Let's sign that shit up, right? So if you just look at it as helping somebody. 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 helps.
Yeah, that sure helps, right? But you should sell a full alphabet up to people in Pittsburgh, dude, because they're only using half of it up there, dude. Oh, yeah, I love it.
There's people up there only using half of it. Rumor you wanted to buy Fox News.
Is that going to happen or not? No, that was all bullshit, right? It was? Yeah, somebody asked me, if you could, would you buy X or 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. There's a rumor that you wanted to build an entire city in Dallas, like a new city from scratch.
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.
It's not a city, it's a town. It's got like no people, right? But it's like 75 square miles, or acres rather.
And a dude I played basketball with was dying of cancer. And said that his only real asset was this town.
It's the only personally owned town in the state and one of the few in the country.

And like old, old friend.

And I'm like, okay, Marty, I'll buy it from you.

So it was like $1.9 million.

So now I own my 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 or 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. Wow.
Do you lease it out for movie sets right now? I would, but I haven't really tried. Right, you've 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? I don't know.
It's your daughter's birthday coming up, you said? Coming up, yeah. Nice.
How old is she going to be? She's going to be 21. gonna be 21 21 in nashville it's gonna be brutal do you feel a responsibility to throw a big party for her yes yeah 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 is she and i is which what's something you really love about her um she's just got a great spirit.
She's feisty as hell.

She's smart.

She's loving.

And she's got a sarcastic sense of humor.

So she's always giving me shit, right?

Yeah.

Which is cool.

I like that.

Yeah.

Somebody's got to give Mark Cuban shit.

Somebody's got to give us all shit.

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.

Yeah.

That's a pretty generic first statement too.

Like, well, it doesn't have to be you.

Right?

Not my family.

Oh my God.

Dad, you're the worst driver.

Dad, you're the worst this.

Dad, you're the worst that.

Oh my God.

See, I got to tell you, I enjoyed this.

This is totally different than any other interview I've ever done.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks, man.

I really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

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. Really appreciate it.
Yeah. 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.

Really appreciate it.

Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

I must be cornerstone.

Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.

I can feel it in my bones.

But it's gonna take a little...