Mark Cuban's Billionaire Luck! - What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Trevor Noah 0:00 [something falls]

Trevor Noah 0:00 Oh. [laughs]

Speaker 0:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:04 That is a, another crash by Josh Johnson. This is, this is all this episode-

Speaker 0:08 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:08 ... is gonna be about is-

Speaker 0:09 I'm very sorry

Trevor Noah 0:10 ... will Josh Johnson make it to the end of the episode?

Speaker 0:13 The drama in that hotel room.

Trevor Noah 0:15 Everyone who's driving right now is, is, is, like, gripping their steering wheel tight. [upbeat music]

Speaker 0:24 This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.

Trevor Noah 0:32 [upbeat music] Happy Mark Cuban Day, everybody.

Speaker 0:39 Hey.

Speaker 0:39 Whoo. Yeah.

Speaker 0:41 Happy Mark-

Speaker 0:41 Mark Cuban.

Speaker 0:43 Yeah.

Speaker 0:43 Yeah. Billionaire, billionaire-

Speaker 0:46 Woohoo

Speaker 0:46 ... billionaire, woo. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:49 [laughs]

Speaker 0:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:49 Oh, man. How was your week, Josh? What'd you get up to?

Speaker 0:52 I'm doing great, man. I'm... Oh, I'm in, I'm in Montana. I did blacksmithing for the first time yesterday. I'm, I'm a new person.

Trevor Noah 1:00 What do you mean you did blacksmithing for the first time? What does that even mean?

Speaker 1:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:03 That's a strange way to say you did somebody's job, and then, like-

Speaker 1:07 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:09 I did a, I did accounting for the first time yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. It was really good.

Speaker 1:14 Yeah. The way that-

Trevor Noah 1:15 I think I might be an accountant now.

Speaker 1:16 Yes, the way that I mean it is not, is not I did accounting, it's that I counted yesterday.

Trevor Noah 1:23 Yeah.

Speaker 1:23 I dipped my toes in.

Trevor Noah 1:25 How was it?

Speaker 1:26 It was great. It's like, it, it was, um, admittedly very difficult because the muscles that it requires are not ones I've ever worked on. 'Cause you would think-

Speaker 1:36 Mm

Speaker 1:37 ... if you have, if you have biceps, and you have good shoulders and everything, that you're gonna hit the, the mallet just right, and everything's gonna flatten out for you.

Trevor Noah 1:45 Yeah.

Speaker 1:45 But what, what was I-

Trevor Noah 1:46 But you need, like, you need, like, a beard, don't you?

Speaker 1:48 You need a beard, and you need wrist strength.

Trevor Noah 1:50 Yeah, I feel like you... Wrist strength? What?

Speaker 1:54 Yeah. Yeah. So there are muscles in the forearm that I've never really... We haven't met.

Trevor Noah 2:00 Huh.

Speaker 2:00 And so then me hitting the mallet and the, and the metal was, it was doing a lot of bouncing back.

Trevor Noah 2:08 Did you make something, by the way?

Speaker 2:09 Yes.

Trevor Noah 2:09 Or did you just-

Speaker 2:10 Yes. I made-

Trevor Noah 2:10 Did they just, like, they just made you hit something like a little child? Which, which one was it?

Speaker 2:14 [laughs] No, I made something. I made a, a-

Trevor Noah 2:16 What did you make?

Speaker 2:17 Um, a hook for my backpack to put on the wall.

Trevor Noah 2:21 A hook-

Speaker 2:22 Yeah

Trevor Noah 2:22 ... for my backpack to put-

Speaker 2:24 Mm

Trevor Noah 2:24 ... on the wall.

Speaker 2:24 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 2:25 What life are you living?

Speaker 2:26 Well, there was no time for me to make something substantial, so I really had to just-

Trevor Noah 2:30 Okay

Speaker 2:31 ... learn all the basics. Like, I had to learn the curve so that the, nothing catches on the hook. I had to learn how to-

Trevor Noah 2:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 2:37 ... flatten out a piece so we can screw it in. And then the functional-

Trevor Noah 2:40 Oh, Lord.

Speaker 2:43 One second. Sorry.

Speaker 2:43 What just happened?

Trevor Noah 2:44 What, what's... Are you okay?

Speaker 2:46 Oh, yes.

Speaker 2:46 What's going on?

Speaker 2:46 Yes. I'm-

Speaker 2:46 His wrist-

Speaker 2:47 No, no, no

Speaker 2:48 ... is injured.

Speaker 2:48 I'm fine.

Speaker 2:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:50 His wrist is cramping. What's going on, Josh?

Speaker 2:52 I, uh, my, my, uh, computer was about to die, so I, I had to grab the charger.

Trevor Noah 2:57 Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:57 Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:58 Just ill-prepared.

Trevor Noah 2:58 All right.

Speaker 2:58 You know, just-

Speaker 2:59 You're just so-

Speaker 3:00 That sounded-

Speaker 3:00 ... in the blacksmith mode, you're not even thinking about the technology anymore.

Speaker 3:03 No, no.

Speaker 3:04 You're just, like, a changed man.

Trevor Noah 3:04 Yeah, that was, that was powerful. That was a... You, you had the same reaction that I'm assuming that Boeing pilot had-

Speaker 3:09 [laughs]

Speaker 3:10 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:10 ... on the flight right now. That, that's what your face looked like right now. You were, you were having a calm, easy conversation with us, and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, God. Oh, God."

Speaker 3:18 Oh, no.

Trevor Noah 3:19 "Oh, God."

Speaker 3:20 Let me see. Okay.

Trevor Noah 3:21 [laughs]

Speaker 3:22 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:25 Oh, man.

Speaker 3:26 Oh, that plug doesn't work. No.

Speaker 3:29 This is giving, like, some good drama to the episode. It's like-

Trevor Noah 3:32 It really is. It really is

Speaker 3:34 ... how long do we have Josh for?

Speaker 3:35 The tension.

Speaker 3:35 We don't know. 4% left?

Trevor Noah 3:37 We don't know.

Speaker 3:38 Oh.

Trevor Noah 3:38 We don't know. Will, will he get it? Will he not get it?

Speaker 3:40 Thank God. Okay. I got it.

Trevor Noah 3:41 Did you get it, Josh?

Speaker 3:41 Yeah, I got it. Oh, man, that was-

Trevor Noah 3:43 Oh, man, that was close.

Speaker 3:44 'Cause it tells you too late.

Trevor Noah 3:45 Whew.

Speaker 3:46 'Cause they'll tell you that the, that the battery low on the computer, and then it'll just say bye.

Trevor Noah 3:51 It's, it's an Irish goodbye, that's what it is.

Speaker 3:53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:54 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:55 It texts you when it's already in the car on the way home, "Hey, I had to leave."

Speaker 3:59 [laughs]

Speaker 3:59 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:59 "The battery was low."

Speaker 4:00 [laughs] Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

Trevor Noah 4:04 Oh, man. Have you been, have you been following the story with the, with the Boeing planes, by the way?

Speaker 4:08 Yes. Yes. I've been-

Trevor Noah 4:09 This is-

Speaker 4:10 ... enthralled. I've done jokes about it.

Trevor Noah 4:13 What's your favorite joke you've told about it?

Speaker 4:16 We really been trashing Spirit for a while now, as Spirit at least get the whole plane there, right?

Trevor Noah 4:23 [laughs]

Speaker 4:23 When you pay Spirit, Spirit is then like-

Trevor Noah 4:26 Uh

Speaker 4:26 ... "Okay, we gonna get you and the plane there." And then you, you are on this Alaska Air flight, pieces of the plane start coming off, and you're like, "Well, I did pay $68." Like, it, like, it just is one of those things where I think as Americans, we are too bloodied from our customer service experiences that we don't even think we deserve full plane.

Speaker 4:46 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:47 That's funny. By the way, I was thinking if I was, if I was the passenger sitting next to the passenger that the door opened on... 'Cause it was a really beautiful story. I don't, I don't know if you, if you saw any of the videos of the passengers, one of them was, made a video-

Speaker 4:59 Oh, yeah

Trevor Noah 4:59 ... and she was talking about how she was sitting in the window. Well, it, it's a window that was a door that then turned into, like, an, like, an exit.

Speaker 5:07 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 5:07 And, and she was sitting there, the thing blew off, and then the passengers around her, like, held her. Like, like, they grabbed her arms and they pulled her inwards. I was like, that is real- That is a te- Every time we think that humanity is terrible, we receive information to the contrary.

Speaker 5:23 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 5:24 You know?

Speaker 5:25 Mm.

Trevor Noah 5:25 Because I, I won't lie to you, I don't know what I would do in that situation, but what I think I would do is pull my hands away from the person who is at the window.

Speaker 5:34 [laughs]

Speaker 5:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:36 I, I do not think I would reach towards them.

Speaker 5:38 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:38 Yeah, if a, if a door blows open-

Speaker 5:40 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:40 ... and there's a stranger next to me, reaching towards me, I would be like, "No, no, my friend. No. No, no. You, you're on, you're on your own right now. This is your journey." You know?

Speaker 5:50 What you just said-

Trevor Noah 5:51 Yeah

Speaker 5:51 ... reminds me of this meme where someone's drowning and their hand is out looking for help, and the person just gives them a high five. It's like, "Bye." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:57 Yeah. Yeah, that's... I'm just, I, I... Again, I, maybe in that scenario I would, I would be overcome by, I don't know, a, an, an instinct greater than myself to save the person-

Speaker 6:08 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 6:09 But-

Speaker 6:09 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 6:09 ... thinking of me right now as Trevor, I think I would, I would recoil. My body would, would, would jump away from the person at the window.

Speaker 6:17 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 6:18 And then I, I would, yeah. And then as they reach for me, I would probably, like, slap their hand away.

Speaker 6:23 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 6:23 Like, while they try, I'd be like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no."

Speaker 6:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 6:30 You know, you know what's been fascinating to me about this Boeing story is, is how many people don't seem to understand the direct, straight line between companies cutting costs at all costs-

Speaker 6:44 Mm

Trevor Noah 6:44 ... and then consumers being in a position where they're receiving an inferior product.

Speaker 6:48 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:48 Mm.

Trevor Noah 6:49 Boeing's just trying to cut costs. It's crazy that they, they said that, that, they said that door was held by four bolts-

Speaker 6:55 Mm

Trevor Noah 6:55 ... that weren't screwed in properly.

Speaker 6:57 I'm pretty sure that they've had so many problems with that Boeing that they've s- they've now, when they do the in-flight announcement, that first one, they stop saying what plane it was. 'Cause remember when you would be on Delta-

Trevor Noah 7:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah

Speaker 7:12 ... and they'd be like, "We're, we're so thankful for you to join us-

Trevor Noah 7:15 Yes

Speaker 7:15 ... on our trip on this Airbus 344."

Trevor Noah 7:16 On this Boeing 7... Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 7:18 They've stopped doing that now.

Trevor Noah 7:19 Yep. Yep.

Speaker 7:19 Now they're just like, "Welcome."

Speaker 7:22 [laughs] Hope you make it.

Trevor Noah 7:25 Welcome to your last day on Earth.

Speaker 7:27 Yeah. Thank you for joining us on your trip to wherever. But they just, I don't think they include that anymore, 'cause I stopped hearing it.

Trevor Noah 7:35 I think something good did come out of this, just saying.

Speaker 7:39 The door. The door came out of this.

Trevor Noah 7:40 Well.

Speaker 7:40 What was, what was something good?

Speaker 7:42 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 7:42 The door definitely came out, but there's a big divide in this country, and I feel like it was a win for one side, and that is my people, the aisle seat people, who are always being told-

Speaker 7:54 You're an aisle seat person?

Trevor Noah 7:56 Yes.

Speaker 7:56 I am too, yeah.

Trevor Noah 7:56 And now I have an extra reason to be an aisle seat person.

Speaker 7:59 Wow.

Trevor Noah 7:59 I can get up to the bathroom whenever I want. I have the power to let other people pee or not.

Speaker 8:03 Wow.

Trevor Noah 8:03 And now I'm not gonna get sucked out of a plane, so I win. So-

Speaker 8:07 Wow

Trevor Noah 8:07 ... thanks, Alaska. No one died, so I'm good with it.

Speaker 8:11 To what Emmanuel is saying, there was one time someone was very mean to me on a, on a flight w- before we took off, and I was in the aisle and they were in the middle, and I just pretended to be asleep so they couldn't get up to pee.

Speaker 8:25 [laughs] Incredible. Incredible power play.

Trevor Noah 8:27 That UTI brought to you by Josh Johnson.

Speaker 8:30 Yeah.

Speaker 8:31 [laughs]

Speaker 8:31 I just like, I really, like, leaned, 'cause I was already napping on the tray table, and I felt them poke me, and then I was like, "You know what?"

Speaker 8:38 Oh, tray table nap.

Speaker 8:39 I'm like-

Speaker 8:39 That's-

Speaker 8:39 ... "I'm not getting up. I'm not getting up"

Trevor Noah 8:41 That's amazing, Josh.

Speaker 8:42 "I'm not moving."

Trevor Noah 8:43 That is amazing.

Speaker 8:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:45 Do you have any, do you have any questions for, uh, Mark Cuban? Anything you're really interested to, uh, to hear from him?

Speaker 8:49 Yes. You, you read my mind.

Trevor Noah 8:51 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:52 In a world where there is so much lack and, and, uh, and so much of a gap between the sort of have and have-not-

Trevor Noah 9:00 Mm

Speaker 9:00 ... how does someone like Mark Cuban maintain their status as a beloved billionaire? Because we're in a world now where-

Trevor Noah 9:06 Oh, that's an interesting question

Speaker 9:07 ... he, he, does, he seems to me to be just as industrious as Elon or Bezos, but in different things, and it doesn't seem like-

Trevor Noah 9:15 Yeah

Speaker 9:15 ... his reach has, has offended the general public in the way that Elon and Bezos have.

Trevor Noah 9:20 Yeah.

Speaker 9:20 How has he managed to have, be so many people's bosses and have so much, uh, power, influence, and, and structure around himself and not drawn the ire of the general public?

Trevor Noah 9:31 That's a, that's a great question, Josh.

Speaker 9:33 Sweet.

Trevor Noah 9:34 I, I thought you were gonna ask something random.

Speaker 9:36 Oh, no. I've, I've learned my lesson.

Trevor Noah 9:38 But it seems like your time blacksmithing-

Speaker 9:39 Oh

Trevor Noah 9:39 ... your time blacksmithing has changed you. Yeah, Bari?

Speaker 9:42 Well, yeah. I mean, my question is, is he willing to invest in Josh's backpack hooks?

Trevor Noah 9:47 [laughs]

Speaker 9:47 'Cause I think it could be... I don't know. It could be really big. So-

Trevor Noah 9:50 You see, I feel like what happened here is Josh secretly sent you his question-

Speaker 9:54 [laughs]

Speaker 9:55 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:55 ... and you sent him yours, and you've all tricked me here into not realizing where the questions have come from. I know a Josh Johnson question when I smell it.

Speaker 10:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:05 I will not be asking him if he'll invest in your backpack hooks. Emmanuel, I'm gonna get one from you, and then we're gonna jump into the interview.

Speaker 10:13 I really wanna hear about before he was super successful in business, he tried to be an actor, and he was in three episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger.

Trevor Noah 10:24 Walker, Texas Ranger, yep.

Speaker 10:26 I wanna hear about that.

Trevor Noah 10:28 Okay.

Speaker 10:28 I'm just very curious, 'cause now we think of him as $6.2 billion. He's also 6'2".

Trevor Noah 10:33 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 10:33 Conspiracy, Illuminati. That's a question.

Trevor Noah 10:36 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 10:37 [laughs] I'll stop there. I think the questions are getting worse. [laughs]

Speaker 10:44 [laughs] We'll leave the questions to you, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 10:45 I actually think they were getting much better.

Speaker 10:47 [laughs]

Speaker 10:48 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:48 Yes. Is it a coincidence that your height is the same as your money, Mark Cuban?

Speaker 10:53 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:54 I think that's a great question.

Speaker 10:55 It's a conspiracy.

Trevor Noah 10:56 All right. Let's jump into it, y'all. Mark Cuban, coming up. [upbeat music] Mark Cuban, the one and only, welcome to the show.

Mark Cuban 11:07 Thanks for having me on.

Trevor Noah 11:08 Yeah, man, it's great, great to have you. You know, you are... When people think of Mark Cuban, they go, "This is a human being who seems to know everything, do everything-

Mark Cuban 11:17 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 11:17 ... get involved in everything, and enjoy everything that he's doing." How do you see yourself? 'Cause some people say Mark Cuban, immediately they go billionaire. Others go, uh, you know, Dallas Mavericks owner. Other people go businessman. What, what's the first thing you think of when you think of Mark Cuban?

Mark Cuban 11:31 Just a regular guy, just, you know, that's been really fortunate, just-

Trevor Noah 11:34 Regular?

Mark Cuban 11:35 Yeah, for real. You know, just a kid from Pittsburgh-

Trevor Noah 11:37 Huh

Mark Cuban 11:38 ... that just, you know, has the same friends, you know, gets beat up by my three teenagers. Um, e- enjoys sports. I, I mean, I, I, loves business and techno- I don't know. I mean, I, I guess I don't think about myself that often, you know? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 11:51 Yeah. Same friends. Are these the same friends that you were selling, um, you know, trash bags with-

Mark Cuban 11:57 Yeah

Trevor Noah 11:57 ... when you were a kid, or are these the same friends you opened the, uh-

Mark Cuban 12:00 The bar with?

Trevor Noah 12:01 The, the bar with?

Mark Cuban 12:02 All the above.

Trevor Noah 12:02 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 12:02 Yeah. So in Pittsburgh, yeah, I still got Stu, the Big Man, Bofy, Seymour, you know, all the, all the, the nicknames you have. And we, you know, we do a Zoom call every two weeks, but still, those are my buddies.

Trevor Noah 12:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:15 Let's, let's talk a little bit about that, the, the young Mark Cuban. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm oftentimes most, um, most intrigued by the, you know, the origin story of a very successful person. And, and yours intrigues me because, you know, you hear the story of this kid who grows up in, um, you know, in this area that doesn't seem particularly special.

Mark Cuban 12:37 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 12:37 Right? It seems like just like every town America, everyone's going into work, doing their thing, living their life, and you had in you this insatiable attitude and idea of, I guess, making money or-

Mark Cuban 12:52 Yeah

Trevor Noah 12:52 ... what would you say your drive is? Is it, is it making money or finding opportunity?

Mark Cuban 12:55 Well, initially it was just making money because, I mean, my dad and my mom, I mean, my dad did upholstery on cars, my mom did odd jobs, and, you know, as long as I can remember it was like, "Okay, if you want something, you're gonna have to go earn it, and you're gonna have to earn the money to do it."

Trevor Noah 13:09 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 13:09 Um, and that's just driven me. I mean, from selling baseball cards when I was 9 and 10 years old to selling garbage bags door to door, selling magazines door to door, it always involved selling. And, you know, I, honestly, if you can sell something door to door, your confidence goes through the roof, and you just learn how to deal with things, and you learn how to build your, you know, to interact with people and, and to be nice. And so-

Trevor Noah 13:33 Yeah

Mark Cuban 13:33 ... I think those things really drove me.

Trevor Noah 13:36 Huh. I, I used to sell things when I was a kid. I used to, um, had a pirated CD business, um-

Mark Cuban 13:43 Beautiful

Trevor Noah 13:43 ... you know, allegedly.

Mark Cuban 13:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:45 That's what my lawyers have actually say, allegedly. [laughs]

Mark Cuban 13:47 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:49 So I, I used to sell, I used to sell, um, music, you know, like, when, when CD writing was still a very new concept.

Mark Cuban 13:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:54 And I know you were also, like, you, I mean, you coded and you were in tech and everything, but I, I loved this idea that you could create from nothing. You had-

Mark Cuban 14:01 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:01 ... this, um, this new technology that could connect people in, in ways, and the computer was this novel idea. I sold things. I connected with people. I-- a lot of your story I can relate to except for the part where you become a billionaire.

Mark Cuban 14:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:17 I need to, I need to understand, I need to understand what steps I missed. What, what mistakes did I make?

Mark Cuban 14:20 That's the luck part. I mean, anybody who's a billionaire who thinks they could just do it all over again is lying their ass off. I mean, you know-

Trevor Noah 14:27 Oh, interesting.

Mark Cuban 14:28 Yeah, for sure, because, you know, if the internet stock market hadn't just taken off when we were starting Audionet, you wouldn't even know who I was.

Trevor Noah 14:36 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 14:36 That's just, you know, that's just the way it works. And, you know, I think could I be a millionaire multiple times over? Yeah, because I could hustle, I could sell, I was smart, but the whole billionaire side of it, the hundreds of millions of dollars, that's just insane, and that was luck.

Trevor Noah 14:51 Man, I like, I like this. You know, I don't think I've, I've ever heard anybody say that, is like, "You can make money, you can do well, but being a billionaire is just luck. Right time, right place, everything." So if, so if literally if I started you again, with all your knowledge today, you don't think you could be a billionaire?

Mark Cuban 15:05 No. No, unless I got lucky again, right? I mean, could I find-

Trevor Noah 15:09 Right

Mark Cuban 15:09 ... opportunities to get me there? There's only a few of those types of opportunities. You can start, you know, a hedge fund and hopefully do well, and then you raise a lot of money. You could take a company public. You can start a private company and have-- and be bought out. Those really are the primary ways to get to that level of wealth. And so could I try any or all of those things?

Trevor Noah 15:29 Right.

Mark Cuban 15:29 Yeah. Like, if, if I had to have an, if I, if you put me in the witness protection program and nobody knew who I was-

Trevor Noah 15:34 Right

Mark Cuban 15:34 ... and I had to just start purely from scratch but I still knew what I know now, I could do well, but I would have to search out some unique opportunity, whether-- 'cause, you know, to, to be a billionaire, there's gotta be something that's very leverageable, right? Something that just-

Trevor Noah 15:48 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 15:49 ... explodes financially. But there's a whole lot of people who are really, really smart who do each and all, each of those things or one of them really well, and we don't know who they are.

Trevor Noah 15:59 What do you, what do you think, um, you need to possess to spot opportunity, you know? And, and this is outside the realm of being a billionaire, but what do you, what do you think it was inside you? Did you get it from your parents? Did you get it from your community? What was it that helped Mark realize that there were gaps in every market? 'Cause you, you were selling stuff when you were a kid.

Mark Cuban 16:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:18 How do you, how do you see those gaps?

Mark Cuban 16:20 I mean, I was just the most curious person you could ever imagine. I mean, I just loved to learn. I was that kid that was just reading everything I could get my hands on about business and-

Trevor Noah 16:30 Yeah

Mark Cuban 16:31 ... if you read enough, you, you're gonna learn something to your advantage.

Trevor Noah 16:33 Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Go back. Go back.

Mark Cuban 16:34 Sure.

Trevor Noah 16:35 Go back. You said you were reading about business as a kid?

Mark Cuban 16:37 Oh, yeah. Like, I was 10, 11, 12, you know, you name it. I, I was reading-

Trevor Noah 16:42 You see, this is the difference

Mark Cuban 16:43 ... yeah, business books all the time.

Trevor Noah 16:45 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 16:45 You know? There was this kid, Barry Minkow, and he started this, um, um, this carpet cleaning company, Z- ZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning, right? And he took a company-

Trevor Noah 16:55 Okay

Mark Cuban 16:55 ... public when he was 21 years old, and there was a book written about him. But the thing about it was it was completely a fraud, and so he made all these tens of millions, if not $100 million as a 21-year-old kid running this company just fooling everybody and anybody he talked to. And I read that book as a kid and I was thinking, "You know, if this kid can fool all these adults, p-put aside the fraud, that just means there, there's lots-

Trevor Noah 17:20 Yeah

Mark Cuban 17:20 ... of opportunity there to do something and build a business." And how old you are doesn't mean a, doesn't mean anything, right? If you can, if you can figure it out. And so I just always just took that and said, you know, I just keep on learning from what other people do and learn from their mistakes and learn what they do right.

Trevor Noah 17:36 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 17:37 Get a job, learn from y- you know, I, I would tell myself, you know, you pay to go to college, but then after you get a job, you get paid to learn. And I always-- that's the way I looked at the jobs that I got, the way I looked at the jobs I got fired from. You know, everything was a learning experience, and sooner or later it added up to something of value.

Trevor Noah 17:54 One of the biggest things I've, I've noticed in your story that's similar to a lot of people who are really successful is you, you, you never fit in, though.

Mark Cuban 18:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:02 You never seem to fit in into, like, a, a strict corporate structure.

Mark Cuban 18:05 No, that's for sure.

Trevor Noah 18:06 You know, like, I know one of, one of your jobs you got fired from and you vowed, you were like, "I'm never going back into corporate America again." Like-

Mark Cuban 18:13 Yeah

Trevor Noah 18:13 ... what do you think it is about corporate America that doesn't work for you and other people who are, who are, like, entrepreneurs or, or really business-minded?

Mark Cuban 18:21 I think structure and limits. I re- [laughs] so one of my first jobs out of college, I went to work at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, and again-

Trevor Noah 18:27 Okay

Mark Cuban 18:28 ... I'm, I'm reading everything I could, and there was this old magazine called Ent- um, Entrepreneur Magazine And there was an article about how companies can save money on their social security taxes. So what do I do? I buy a copy, I earmark it, I write a little note on it, and I send it to the CEO at this huge Mellon bank, I mean, with thousands and thousands-

Trevor Noah 18:48 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 18:48 ... of employees. And I get a note back saying, "Thank you. It's not quite a fit." But my boss was like, "What the hell are you doing?" And then I started this, I started the-

Trevor Noah 18:56 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 18:56 ... rookie club, right? Where I would take, I would get all the other people who had just started with me, and I would go find a senior level executive, and we'd take him out and get him drunk or her drunk, and just sit there and chitchat. And my boss, John Whitman-

Trevor Noah 19:08 That is hilarious

Mark Cuban 19:09 ... I'll, I'll never forget, he calls me into his office. He goes, "What the fuck are you doing?" And literally-

Trevor Noah 19:15 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 19:15 ... no lie, like, I start to, like, I tear up and I start to cry, and I tell, "Oh, sorry, my contacts are bothering me," because he's just yelling at me-

Trevor Noah 19:23 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 19:23 ... nonstop, and I'm 22 years old. And like, I'm just trying to do the best I can to help my company make more money, and it's just, that's, that's, that's the delta, right? That's the difference because I, I didn't look at it as just a job that I just wanted and I was gonna work 9:00 to 5:00-

Trevor Noah 19:38 Uh-huh

Mark Cuban 19:38 ... and just see where I can go.

Trevor Noah 19:39 Uh-huh.

Mark Cuban 19:39 To me, it was an opportunity, and my only mission was to help my company make more money, and my, my peers and my, um, my bosses didn't quite see it that way.

Trevor Noah 19:48 Yeah, you, you know, it's funny, when, when you say it like that, it, it, it brings me to an idea that I often speak about with my friends, which is I don't think anybody's not successful, or I don't think anybody's not good at doing something. I just think that most of us aren't afforded the opportunity to do the thing that we are good at for money.

Mark Cuban 20:06 Well, most people-

Trevor Noah 20:06 And it seems like you were lucky enough to be in that position, right?

Mark Cuban 20:08 You're 100% right. And for a lot of people, they can't even find what that one thing is. I, I really truly believe that we're all God-given gifted at something. The hard part is-

Trevor Noah 20:18 Yeah

Mark Cuban 20:18 ... is finding it and having the confidence to try it. Um, and-

Trevor Noah 20:21 Yeah, and hoping that there's money that comes from it, 'cause I feel like some people-

Mark Cuban 20:24 Well, but that's what's important

Trevor Noah 20:24 ... have a talent.

Mark Cuban 20:26 Yeah, and maybe money's not the thing that drives you either, you know? I mean, we all have our own version of success. You know, when I was busted in, with five roommates, um, you know, I was still having fun. It wasn't my ultimate goal, but I mean, I was enjoying my life.

Trevor Noah 20:38 Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Cuban 20:38 So I think, you know, the hard part is just finding. It's what I tell my kids, you know? You don't have to... You know, when you're 14, 17, 20 years old, you don't have to know what you're gonna be when you grow up. You just have to be willing to be curious-

Trevor Noah 20:50 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 20:50 ... excited to learn, love to learn, and then, you know, someday you'll find something that you really enjoy doing hopefully.

Trevor Noah 20:57 Do you, do you think you're raising normal, well-adjusted kids?

Mark Cuban 21:01 That's the hope. [laughs] That's the plan.

Trevor Noah 21:04 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 21:05 You know, you get unsolicited comments from friends, or not even friends, but just people-

Trevor Noah 21:09 Yeah

Mark Cuban 21:09 ... your kids come in contact with and, you know-

Trevor Noah 21:12 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 21:12 ... they, they say they're good kids, and they are good kids, but you know, they do the math. [laughs] You know?

Trevor Noah 21:17 Right. Right.

Mark Cuban 21:17 They, they read the stories and, and so they know what's coming their way. And so, um, as much as we try to keep them grounded, we're not, you know, we're not a household that has servants and somebody doing everything for you all the time. It's just, you know, we try to just live as normally as we can having a plane.

Trevor Noah 21:34 Yeah, and that's, that's, that's the thing, right? There's still those little, little things that jump out at you.

Mark Cuban 21:39 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 21:39 You know, it's funny, one of the funniest stories I, I remember was, um, I was t- I was speaking to Jerry Seinfeld about, um, how you raise normal kids when you're living an extraordinary life. And, and he said to me, [laughs] and I mean, you know, Jerry's one of the funniest people ever.

Mark Cuban 21:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 21:52 And he says to me, he goes, what he does is he always reminds his kids that he's rich-

Mark Cuban 21:59 Yeah, he's [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:59 ... they're not rich.

Mark Cuban 22:01 I've done the same thing many, many times, just like we were talking about tattoos, and I said, "Tattoo on you? No, you, and will." [laughs] You know?

Trevor Noah 22:12 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 22:13 Just stuff like that. For sure.

Trevor Noah 22:17 This is something that's always fascinated me. What's, what's, what's your day, what's your routine like? I'm, I'm constantly bombarded with these, they always pop up on social media, and it's like, "Live like a billionaire. Wake up at 4:00 AM. Be up before the sun. Go to sleep before the sun goes down."

Mark Cuban 22:33 No.

Trevor Noah 22:33 "Drink coffee that has butter in it."

Mark Cuban 22:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 22:35 What's, what's your routine, Mark?

Mark Cuban 22:36 Um, I get up probably 7:00, 6:30, 7:00, just depending on the day.

Trevor Noah 22:42 Oh, I like this. I like this already.

Mark Cuban 22:44 Lay in bed, look at my emails.

Trevor Noah 22:46 Okay.

Mark Cuban 22:46 'Cause I try to do-

Trevor Noah 22:47 Okay

Mark Cuban 22:47 ... everything by email. And so then I'm in bed for, like, an hour, chilling, doing my emails, responding to anything that's urgent. And then get up, get something to eat, go work out. Um, and then come back and rinse and repeat because I, I literally try to do as few meetings and calls as possible and try to gear everything towards email. And so, I mean, I'm on, I'm on my phone or my PC all day, every day.

Trevor Noah 23:10 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 23:11 And that's it. That's it.

Trevor Noah 23:12 Man, I, I like... This is the first normal response I've gotten from a really successful person, where it's just like that sounds like an achievable way to live your life, you know?

Mark Cuban 23:21 I mean, the whole value of, of being in this position is just being able to control your time. That's it.

Trevor Noah 23:26 That's what I'm talking about. This is exactly what I'm talking about. But some people make it seem like the more successful you become, the less you are in control of your life-

Mark Cuban 23:32 No

Trevor Noah 23:32 ... which then makes it seem like there's no incentive to get there.

Mark Cuban 23:35 Right. Right. I mean, look, when I, when I was in college, I bought this book, How to Retire by the Age of 35, and the whole premise of the book was live like a student, right? You don't have to have anything fancy. You just save up your money and, you know, l- just barely live off of what you need to live off of.

Trevor Noah 23:50 Uh-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Mark Cuban 23:50 And I, I was cool with that, right? Because, like, that's the one thing you can't get back, that just flies by. It's the one asset you can't control, and you can't... It's just time. And to me, just being able to control my own time so I can go to my kids' basketball games-

Trevor Noah 24:04 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 24:04 ... I can, I can just try to get them to engage with me and then have them turn their back on me more times a day, right? You know, it's just-

Trevor Noah 24:11 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 24:12 ... all those things in life that you just wanna hold on to. Those, those are the things-

Trevor Noah 24:16 Yeah

Mark Cuban 24:16 ... that I really value.

Trevor Noah 24:18 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music] Well, you know, Mark, one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you on the podcast is because I honestly believe there are, there are few people out there who, um, have more interesting opinions- And not just opinions, but opinions that are based in experience or in some way, shape, or form attached to what's actually happening in the world than Mark Cuban. You know, w- whether it's sports, we can talk about that, whether it's politics, we can talk about that. We talk about, you know, business, um, you know, e- everything, even medicine.

Mark Cuban 24:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 24:58 And that's- that's something I, I'm really fascinated about. I, I really wanna get into it with you.

Mark Cuban 25:02 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 25:03 But you, you, you're somebody who, if, if I try and sum you up, Mark Cuban, in my opinion, is somebody who has always been in touch with what's happening in the world and trying to figure out what it means for both themselves and the people living in that world. So-

Mark Cuban 25:20 Thank you

Trevor Noah 25:20 ... when you look at the world right now, like, what's, what's your, w- what's your feeling on it? Do, do you think things are getting better? Do you think things are staying the same? Or do you think things are getting worse?

Mark Cuban 25:30 So it's, there's tactical and there's strategic, big picture, right? Tactically, things are worse.

Trevor Noah 25:34 Okay.

Mark Cuban 25:34 Right? Because, you know, how we consume information has changed dramatically over the past five years even. Uh, you know, and it continues-

Trevor Noah 25:42 Yeah

Mark Cuban 25:42 ... to change, and I think that's a real problem, and that's led to a lot of people falling into their own echo chamber and, and disassociating with each other. And, and that's a problem. But on, on the bright side, what I see in my kids, I'm very positive.

Trevor Noah 25:56 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 25:56 Other than climate change always being a topic, you know, th- they're positive about the future. You know? They're excited-

Trevor Noah 26:02 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 26:02 ... and, and I feel good about them and the impact that they can have. So on one hand, when I look at Gen Z and our kids, I'm, I'm, I'm really positive and excited. On the other hand-

Trevor Noah 26:11 Right

Mark Cuban 26:11 ... when I, when I look at adults, you know, it reminds me of, you know, I'm, I'm a baby boomer, and it's, what a disappointment my generation has turned into. We started off really, really good with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, you know? And we started off, you know, protesting the Vietnam War, and yada, yada, yada.

Trevor Noah 26:28 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 26:28 And now we're the Fox News generation going down the rabbit holes. And, and that's kinda disappointing. But you know, again, Father Time is undefeated, and the kids that are, you know, the kids are our future. I know every, every parent, every generation says that, but I truly believe it.

Trevor Noah 26:44 Let me, let me ask you this. Like, I'd love to know how you think you've maintained this ability to both be honest, but then also find a way to grow within the views that you have. Because, you know, um, I s- I saw a post of yours. It's funny, I think both of u- both of us comment on it in different ways, but, like, you know, this, this whole, um, Boeing, uh-

Mark Cuban 27:03 Right

Trevor Noah 27:03 ... the Boeing plane where the, the, the, you know, the door blew off.

Mark Cuban 27:06 The door.

Trevor Noah 27:06 Yeah. And everyone's been speaking about that. And it was really fascinating how a lot of people online, and I think many of them s- spurred on by Elon Musk, started talking about how, "Oh, you see, this is what happens when you have diversity. Boeing started having diversity-"

Mark Cuban 27:19 [laughs] Yeah

Trevor Noah 27:19 ... "and the planes started falling apart."

Mark Cuban 27:21 Right.

Trevor Noah 27:21 And you, you wrote this amazing post. You just, you just laid out the facts. You said, "Hey, first of all, this is not what diversity is. Diversity's about expanding our scope to make sure that everyone gets looked at for the hiring."

Mark Cuban 27:30 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:30 Because a lot of people weren't looked at for the hiring. And then you said something that I really, really loved, that I, I hope m- m- more people think about. You said, "We need to..." And I'm paraphrasing. You basically said, "We need to let go of the notion that we know who will be right for every job, and understand that most of the time we are guessing based on-"

Mark Cuban 27:50 Yeah

Trevor Noah 27:50 ... "a set of parameters that we've chosen." What, what do you, what did you mean by that?

Mark Cuban 27:53 So as, as an entrepreneur and somebody who has hired forever and then actually learned I'm really bad at hiring and turned it over to others, um, most jobs, 99% of jobs, it's impossible to tell which candidate out of however many is the best. You know, if you're hiring a barista, how do you know who the best barista is? Do you give them-

Trevor Noah 28:12 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 28:13 ... you know, do you put them behind a counter and say, "How fast can you make that mocha?" You know, it just, you, you just don't know. If you're hiring for a sales rep, maybe you can look at their history, but until, when you put them in this new position, you don't know. And there's a reason-

Trevor Noah 28:26 Yeah

Mark Cuban 28:26 ... why they're willing to leave their last job, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so 99% of the time when you're hiring, it's a guess. And so the whole idea that you can just use merit to make a determination in how you hire for every job is just wrong. And anybody who's hired, you know, quite a few positions just, just knows that. And so, you know, and I, I wanted to get that out there because it was on Twitter X, right? And you, the way it's all set up there, it's, you know, it's Elon's little echo chamber that rewards people that, that he rewards.

Trevor Noah 28:59 Right. Right.

Mark Cuban 29:00 And so I knew I was going into the lion's den and that I was just, people were just gonna shit on me left and right, which exactly why I wrote it, right? Because that made it more interesting, more fun. Um-

Trevor Noah 29:10 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 29:10 ... but it also, that was the audience that needed to hear it. And, and if there was, you know, one light that, light bulb that came on, that's a win.

Trevor Noah 29:18 Yeah, man, I, I, I, I really, I really appreciate that about you. The w- the way you think about the world, it's really interesting. It's dynamic. Um, obviously, obviously I also love it because you're involved in, in sport. You said something about, about sports as well in that post where you said, "As somebody who's worked in sports for a long time, I've realized even if you draft the best player, they may not end up being the best player, and some of the undrafted players go on to be the best players."

Mark Cuban 29:40 Correct.

Trevor Noah 29:40 What do you, what do you think, what do you think of the current players that, that have been drafted? I mean, Victor Wembanyama, that seems like-

Mark Cuban 29:45 He's great

Trevor Noah 29:45 ... it was the right choice.

Mark Cuban 29:46 Oh, yeah, he's great.

Trevor Noah 29:47 He's phenomenal.

Mark Cuban 29:47 Yeah, he's f- he's phenomenal, right? I mean, we've got a great young crop of players who, who are, are just getting better. The league is really competitive, um, on any given night. And what's interesting, Trevor, social media has acted, in some respects, as a training course. Like, when I was a kid growing up, there were no trainers. You didn't, you know, you, you just went to your basketball team or football team and whatever, whenever-

Trevor Noah 30:09 Right

Mark Cuban 30:09 ... you had practice, and then you worked on your game maybe some afterwards. Now there's instructional videos online for every position in every sport, and the skill levels-

Trevor Noah 30:17 Yeah, that's true. Yeah

Mark Cuban 30:18 ... are going, the skill levels are going higher and higher and higher.

Trevor Noah 30:21 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 30:21 And so the qu- and that, so the players are better, the quality of the games are better, and I, and I think that's overall a positive.

Trevor Noah 30:28 What do you think fans do not understand about the running of a team? Because as fans, there is no denying that we all think we can do a much better job than every team owner and every manager that exists-

Mark Cuban 30:43 Yeah, for sure

Trevor Noah 30:44 ... for every single... If you're a fan, you sit watching the games, whether you're at the stadium or whether you're at home, and you go, "Why didn't they do this?"

Mark Cuban 30:51 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 30:51 "Why didn't they get that player?"

Mark Cuban 30:52 [laughs] Trust me, I know, right?

Trevor Noah 30:53 "Why didn't they... These idiots don't know what they're doing."

Mark Cuban 30:55 Amen.

Trevor Noah 30:55 What do you, what do you, what do you think- ... fans don't know that that might change their perspective on what it means to actually run a team?

Mark Cuban 31:02 I don't know if it'll change their perspective, but I think they don't truly understand the impact of luck, you know? Um, I'll give you the all-time luck story, like Steph Curry, arguably one of the-

Trevor Noah 31:13 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 31:13 ... top 10 players, top five players of all time. When he first got started, he, there was a backcourt made of his, Monte Ellis, who ended up playing for the Mavs actually, also very good, maybe even a little better than Steph at the time. And, um, Golden State d- was getting ready to do a trade with the Milwaukee Bucks for Andrew Bogut. They gave the Milwaukee Bucks the choice of Steph Curry or Monte Ellis. If the Bucks had taken Steph Curry, history is written completely differently in the NBA. Luck is just such a huge component.

Trevor Noah 31:43 Wow.

Mark Cuban 31:44 Luck is such a huge impact in sports, every sport.

Trevor Noah 31:47 Right.

Mark Cuban 31:47 And I don't think fans truly appreciate that. You know, as much as the f- as fans we think we're smart, as owners sometimes we think we're smart, general managers-

Trevor Noah 31:54 Yeah, yeah

Mark Cuban 31:54 ... think they're smart. It's, I'll take luck over smart every single time.

Trevor Noah 32:00 I'll take luck over smart every single time.

Mark Cuban 32:02 For sure.

Trevor Noah 32:02 Yeah, I mean, and, and I mean, the Mavs have been a, um, a powerhouse team for a long time. Many have correctly, um, attributed that success to you. What did you change in an organization that had been running for so long that enabled it to become the, the successful institution that it is today? Because it, it wasn't always what it is today.

Mark Cuban 32:22 Right.

Trevor Noah 32:22 And now it's turned into a powerhouse. What do you, what do you think you changed?

Mark Cuban 32:25 Well, it's what I didn't change. I had a great player named Dirk Nowitzki that I kept for a long, long time.

Trevor Noah 32:29 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 32:30 Um, a great player, Luka Dončić. So sometimes it's what you don't do that's the smartest thing you do. I, I remember coming in, um, and I, I just thought, "You know what? I'm just gonna run it the way I run a business. I'm an entrepreneur. What's worked for me, why would I change?" And so I came in-

Trevor Noah 32:44 Yeah

Mark Cuban 32:44 ... immediately like, "Okay, we're gonna train the players," you know? So we're tr- traditionally basketball teams had three or four coaches. We had 15. We had one player development coach for every player. Now they, every team does that. We were gonna make it so that, you know, players got the best of everything because they travel.

Trevor Noah 33:01 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 33:01 Their bodies are their job, right? So just, I just brought common sense, I think, more than anything else, and it wasn't that it was any notion that was so ridiculously creative. It was just common sense, and the old guys who ran the teams before I got to the NBA just didn't think that way.

Trevor Noah 33:17 What do you think of, um, politics in sports? Uh, I, I ask this because, you know, 2024 is, is gonna ramp up. It's gonna gear up to be, I would, I would argue, and I hope I'm wrong, by the way, I think it may be one of the most vicious elections America has been, uh, involved in in a very long time.

Mark Cuban 33:34 Yep.

Trevor Noah 33:34 And, you know, athletes and sports teams are always caught in this strange place where some people believe sports should always remain agnostic. It should only be about sport and, and allow it to be an escape for people. You know, others will say, "No, this is, this is a platform. People have a responsibility. This is where they can speak out." But then the debate becomes what can they speak out about and how much of it can they speak out to? What, what's your opinion on, on, um, athletes and, and, and franchises and, and politics?

Mark Cuban 34:02 Well, there may be debate, but the reality is when you become a high-profile professional athlete, you don't lose your rights as a citizen. And if it's important to you and what you believe in and you have a platform, of course you're gonna use it. Why wouldn't you?

Trevor Noah 34:17 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 34:17 I mean, it's just like you use your platform, I use my platform because we've earned that right to do that, and if it's important to us, we use it. So while I may not agree with what every athlete says across every sport, I certainly respect their right to do so. Um, and in terms of teams, that's, that's a little bit more difficult because no matter what, you're gonna have fans and customers who are on both sides of the aisle or on both sides of any topic.

Trevor Noah 34:40 Right, right, right.

Mark Cuban 34:41 And so, you know, we'll, we'll try to be supportive of the things we truly believe in without going overboard, you know? So we'll put out a statement saying, "Look, this is what we believe and this is what we agree," and then we'll leave it at that, right? We're not gonna go out there and invest in, you know, buying advertising to promote this point of view or anything. We'll use our social media platforms-

Trevor Noah 35:02 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 35:03 ... make our statement and, and pretty much leave it at that.

Trevor Noah 35:06 Help, help me break this down. You're not leaving the team-

Mark Cuban 35:08 No

Trevor Noah 35:08 ... but you are selling your majority stake.

Mark Cuban 35:10 Right. So I still have 27% and I'll still run basketball operations, but the reality is, you know, sports evolve and when I first got in in 2000, technology and media were really the driving factors for revenue, and I, I was good at those things.

Trevor Noah 35:24 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 35:24 I'm, I'm good at those things, right? And so I, I had a competitive advantage and I was able to generate revenue. Now that's changing. You know, the media, as you know better than anybody, right, media's changed dramatically. The, the-

Trevor Noah 35:35 Yeah, yeah

Mark Cuban 35:35 ... you know, the incumbent company's no longer in the position of strength that they once were.

Trevor Noah 35:39 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 35:40 Revenue scenarios are changing dramatically, and that change has meant that in order to be a revenue, a leading revenue-generating team which pays for those salaries, you have to be in real estate, you have to be in entertainment centers and, you know, just, um, potentially casinos, and those are things I don't have a s- the slightest clue in. And so I don't, I don't need to pretend that I can afford to spend a billion dollars in something I don't understand. So I brought in a great partner and-

Trevor Noah 36:08 Oh, wow.

Mark Cuban 36:08 Yeah, I brought in great partners, um, Patrick Dumont, who runs the Sands, and Marion Adamson, who, um, is one of the owners, and they know that stuff inside and out.

Trevor Noah 36:16 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 36:16 They have those types of properties around the world and they're amazing. And so they made a great partner. They're not, you know, hardcore into... They're basketball fans, but they don't wanna run a team, and I don't wanna run a real estate operation.

Trevor Noah 36:28 You're also stepping away from, um, Shark Tank.

Mark Cuban 36:31 I got one more year. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:34 One more year.

Mark Cuban 36:35 One more year, yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:35 And then, and then you're out there as well.

Mark Cuban 36:36 Then I'm out, yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:37 It, it feels like this is a, a period of transitions for you. You know?

Mark Cuban 36:40 No. [laughs] No, no, no, no.

Trevor Noah 36:43 No?

Mark Cuban 36:43 No, no. It's not a transi- It's just, you know, self-awareness and reality setting in, right? On one hand, like, like I just said, I don't know real estate and I'm not gonna mess around with a billion dollars to find out, right? I don't need to fuck around-

Trevor Noah 36:56 Okay, okay

Mark Cuban 36:56 ... and find out where a billion dollars went.

Trevor Noah 36:58 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 36:59 Two, on, on, on Shark, just, you know, on Shark Tank, y- you know- While my kids were all in s- in high school or, or younger, all their schedules were aligned. And, you know-

Trevor Noah 37:10 Okay

Mark Cuban 37:10 ... when we were shooting Shark Tank in September and June, all right, we can make it all work, and then in between, the kids would do what we tell them to do. Now my oldest-

Trevor Noah 37:19 Okay, okay

Mark Cuban 37:19 ... is a sophomore in college, and she wants to do her own thing. The middle one is a really k- really, really good rower, and she's getting recruited, and she's working her ass off to be amazing. And so their schedule drives the train, not mine. And so I don't want to-

Trevor Noah 37:33 Oh, interesting.

Mark Cuban 37:34 Yeah, so one more year because I didn't wanna leave Shark Tank hanging-

Trevor Noah 37:37 Okay

Mark Cuban 37:37 ... 'cause I still love the show-

Trevor Noah 37:38 Yeah

Mark Cuban 37:38 ... I still love what it stands for, and those reruns will run for the next 700 years. But, um, I, I just wanted more time with my kids. That's it in a nutshell.

Trevor Noah 37:46 Oh, wow.

Mark Cuban 37:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 37:47 I thought, I thought you were running for president.

Mark Cuban 37:48 No. [laughs] No. My kids would disown me, my family would disown me if I did that, so no.

Trevor Noah 37:53 Oh, so you wouldn't consider it at all?

Mark Cuban 37:55 No, just 'cause my family. No, if, if, yeah, uh, uh, with my kids and everything, this is just... I don't wanna look back when I'm 95 and say, "Oh yeah, that extra season of Shark Tank really made the difference instead of going to Europe with my family," you know?

Trevor Noah 38:07 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 38:08 Or, "Boy, I'm glad I, I went, ran for president and got my ass kicked," because, um, uh, you know, and missed those three years or four years. No, it's just, you know, I'm, I'm not young, but I'm not so, so old that I couldn't, you know, put it off four years or eight years or if I decide to do anything, yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:26 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. Let's talk about some of the other things, um, Mark Cuban is involved in. You are engaged in one of the most interesting ventures ever, and this is about getting people access to low-cost drugs, uh, medicine. One of the craziest things about living in America is being in a country that is a first-world country, that is one of the richest nations in the world, that excels in almost everything business-wise and all of these ideas, and the healthcare system-

Mark Cuban 39:04 It's just insane

Trevor Noah 39:05 ... is just horrendous. Like-

Mark Cuban 39:07 Insane

Trevor Noah 39:07 ... you know, people, people have to keep jobs that they don't wanna keep because they're terrified of losing their healthcare, and they can't support their family's health, and the whole system is tied up into this weird-

Mark Cuban 39:16 Yeah

Trevor Noah 39:16 ... gunky mess that, that doesn't work the way it should. You've stepped in, and you've decided to, I mean, really, really shake things up.

Mark Cuban 39:25 Yep.

Trevor Noah 39:26 Talk to me about, like, the, the inception and the idea behind this, because there are very few people who could do this, and I wanna know why you thought you could do this and how you think you're gonna do it without being blackballed by the big boys.

Mark Cuban 39:36 Right. So CostPlusDrugs.com is the name of the company, and I started becoming a, a healthcare geek probably six, seven years ago during the Trump administration-

Trevor Noah 39:46 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 39:46 ... when they said they were gonna try to get rid of, um, the ACA, um, the Affordable Care Act-

Trevor Noah 39:52 Yes

Mark Cuban 39:52 ... and they didn't have anything to replace it. So I'm like, "Okay, you know-

Trevor Noah 39:55 Right

Mark Cuban 39:55 ... if, if the shit hits the fan, I wanna at least, you know, understand what's going on." And nothing-

Trevor Noah 39:59 Well, to be fair to Trump, he said he w- he said he was gonna replace it with something much better.

Mark Cuban 40:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 40:04 Something much better.

Mark Cuban 40:05 Like he always does.

Trevor Noah 40:05 There were no specifics, but he did say-

Mark Cuban 40:07 Like he always does

Trevor Noah 40:07 ... he did say he was gonna replace it with something much better.

Mark Cuban 40:09 And why would we not believe him, right? But-

Trevor Noah 40:12 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 40:12 ... just because I'm curious and I wanted to know more. Um, so I started getting into it, and just, you know, happenstance, um, I got a email, cold email from a Dr. Alex Oshmyansky, who was starting a compounding pharmacy in Denver, and what he wanted to do was take generics that were in short supply and make them and sell them cheaper. The challenge was-

Trevor Noah 40:33 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 40:33 ... with that is that it was very difficult to scale. So we started talking. I'm like, "Okay, let's start this company where we, we sell these generics that you wanted to make, but we just buy them and sell them, but we're very transparent about our pricing. And let's call it CostPlusDrugs.com," 'cause I was able, we were able to get that URL. So we started it, um, and the whole premise is very, very simple. We buy drugs. We sell drugs from CostPlusDrugs.com. But we show you our cost. We show you our 15% markup. We show you our, our shipping and handling fees, and that's it. But by doing that, a couple things happened. We publish our price list, so now everybody who buys any type of medication at all, even if you have good insurance, you may go to CostPlusDrugs.com and see that our, the medication you take by buying from us is cheaper than your copay from your great insurance pro- program at, at-

Trevor Noah 41:27 Yeah

Mark Cuban 41:28 ... at, um, at work. So but by putting that transparent price list out there and by limiting our markup to 15%, we're able to sell a lot of medications just thousands, in some cases tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than what they were being sold for before. Because what happens in our healthcare tystem- system, talking about, you know, being screwed up, you go to your doctor.

Trevor Noah 41:50 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 41:50 He says, "Okay, Trevor, I'm gonna prescribe you this," and the next words out of his mouth aren't, "Can you afford it?" or, "Let's talk about cost." It's, "What pharmacy do you use?"

Trevor Noah 42:00 Yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban 42:00 And then you go to the pharmacy, and you may or may not even know what your copay is. You don't know what the cost is. The company that you work for who's paying for the health insurance, if they are paying, doesn't know what they're paying. There's just no transparency whatsoever.

Trevor Noah 42:14 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 42:14 So by introducing transparency, now everybody's getting to see that they're paying too much for their medications, and that's had a profound change on the entire industry. And now these incumbents, they're, they're trying to copy us. Now, they're lying when they try to do it. They say, "Okay, we're starting our own Cost Plus program," but they get to pick the pa- the, the cost that they mark up, and they don't tell you the markup, et cetera, et cetera. So we've had... So now CostPlusDrugs.com, you know, we've had millions of customers. We've sh- I don't even know how much money we've saved. You know, we've had scenarios where, you know, um, and I, we hear this ev- every week it seems like.

Trevor Noah 42:50 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 42:50 Somebody was paying, you know, $26,000 a year, and we cut their cost down to $200 a year, right? They, they went to CVS, and the price for their, their chemo-

Trevor Noah 43:00 That's so insane

Mark Cuban 43:00 ... p- price for their chemotherapy medication was going to be-

Trevor Noah 43:03 That's insane

Mark Cuban 43:03 ... $2,000, and our price was $21. You know? It's, it's just completely insane is right, and it's just the first step for us. Right now, we went, like when we last talked about this, um, I think we had a coup- ... probably hundreds of drugs. Now we're up to-

Trevor Noah 43:19 Yeah

Mark Cuban 43:19 ... 2,400 drugs. Um, by this time next year, we'll have a full complement of brand drugs.

Trevor Noah 43:24 Help, help me understand this then. Am I correct or am I naive in assuming that the price of medicines in America are only the prices of medicines in America because these drug companies are greedy and can afford to be greedy because nobody-

Mark Cuban 43:40 No

Trevor Noah 43:40 ... stops them?

Mark Cuban 43:40 No. That, that's actually not the case. And so-

Trevor Noah 43:43 Okay, what is it then?

Mark Cuban 43:43 It, it's crazy. So two things. First, there's generic drugs and there's branded drugs, right? So Eliquis-

Trevor Noah 43:48 Right

Mark Cuban 43:48 ... brand- branded, right? Et cetera.

Trevor Noah 43:50 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 43:50 So on-

Trevor Noah 43:51 Viagra, branded, et cetera.

Mark Cuban 43:52 Right, right. And, but there's a generic for Viagra. I'm not saying I know-

Trevor Noah 43:55 Yes

Mark Cuban 43:55 ... anybody who uses it, but there is. Um, and so-

Trevor Noah 43:59 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 43:59 [laughs] So in, for generic drugs, those 2,400-plus drugs that we sell at Cost Plus Drugs-

Trevor Noah 44:06 Yes

Mark Cuban 44:06 ... we're cheaper than any other country in the world except maybe India and China. So if-

Trevor Noah 44:11 Okay

Mark Cuban 44:12 ... there's people from Canada who are trying to get us to sell them generics in Canada and in other-

Trevor Noah 44:18 Oh, wait

Mark Cuban 44:18 ... Germany, et cetera.

Trevor Noah 44:18 So you flipped it around, 'cause normally people wanna buy from Canada because it's cheaper.

Mark Cuban 44:21 Correct.

Trevor Noah 44:21 Now you flipped that around. Okay.

Mark Cuban 44:23 Correct, for generic drugs. Now on-

Trevor Noah 44:25 Right

Mark Cuban 44:25 ... branded drugs, branded drugs typically are sold through insurance and, or Medicare. And so, or, and most people have Medicare Advantage if they have Medicare, and that works through an insurance company. And it's the insurance company, the big insurance companies and what they, what's called a pharmacy benefit manager that negotiates those prices with big pharma, who in turn-

Trevor Noah 44:48 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 44:48 ... is forced by those companies to pay a big rebate. And because they're paying rebates to the PBMs, that jacks up the price of the retail price of that brand drug. So when you talk to the manufacturers of those drugs, there's exceptions. You know, there's some drugs that, like-

Trevor Noah 45:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Mark Cuban 45:06 ... the weight loss drugs, right? They can't even make enough. They're keeping those prices high no matter what, and the rebates not impacting them-

Trevor Noah 45:12 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 45:12 ... at all. But for most brand drugs, it's not the manufacturer that's selling it at the highest price. It's the insurance company and the pharmacy benefit manager who are jacking it up-

Trevor Noah 45:23 Oh, interesting

Mark Cuban 45:23 ... so they can retain a rebate. So literally when we come in and add transparency, the brand manufacturers, the big pharma guys, they love us because we bring truth-

Trevor Noah 45:32 So they don't mind you because you're actually-

Mark Cuban 45:33 They love us

Trevor Noah 45:33 ... stepping in as-

Mark Cuban 45:35 Right. So look at it this way.

Trevor Noah 45:36 Huh.

Mark Cuban 45:36 If a drug is retail priced at $1,000, and they pay a 64% rebate, which is about the right number, to that-

Trevor Noah 45:45 Yeah

Mark Cuban 45:45 ... that pharmacy benefit manager, they're only getting $360 out of that $1,000 drug, right? So if they-

Trevor Noah 45:51 So the drug company doesn't mind making that $300 'cause they, they're making the 300 no matter what.

Mark Cuban 45:56 They're making the 300, but they'd rather, they'd rather sell that drug through us and us just mark it up 15% rather than it be sold-

Trevor Noah 46:04 Huh

Mark Cuban 46:04 ... for 1,000. So that's part of our battle right now because those pharmacy benefit managers don't want the manuf- the brand manu- manufacturers to sell through us. And that's leading to even other problems because those brand, those, um, the insurance companies and the, um, pharmacy benefit managers, they're destroying ... Maybe destroying is too strong a word, but really negatively impacting the independent pharmacy business, that, you know, that local pharmacy that works with your grandma-

Trevor Noah 46:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Mark Cuban 46:34 ... and has known her for 30 years.

Trevor Noah 46:35 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 46:35 Right? They actually-

Trevor Noah 46:37 Right

Mark Cuban 46:37 ... when you buy that brand, that brand, um, drug from your local pharmacy, the pharmacy's now losing money on those brands, and they're losing more and more money because of the games the pharmacy benefit managers play. And it, it's just, it's horrific. And so we're trying to work directly with the pharma manufacturers to help ... You know, we put together a network of independent pharmacies. So instead of losing $10 every time they sell a brand drug, they're gonna start making money. And this is gonna sound crazy, but if you work for a local independent pharmacist and you're getting a brand drug, ask them if they're losing money on it and if there's a way to do a cash price, or even ask them if you can tip them. 'Cause literally I've started tipping my local independent pharmacy because they are getting crushed when they sell you.

Trevor Noah 47:23 This is depressing, though.

Mark Cuban 47:23 Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. There's thou- there's thousands of indepar- thousands of independent pharmacists are just toast because of these rules and these chargebacks and all these games the pharmacy benefit managers are playing. And you know what, to make matters worse, when you look at a pharmacy benefit manager, if I put on my Shark Tank hat and they walked in on Shark Tank-

Trevor Noah 47:44 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 47:44 ... and I said, "Okay, what is the one thing that you do that every one of your customers needs and can't live without?" There's not one damn thing. There's not one thing that they do. It's just that they're so big.

Trevor Noah 47:55 They're just-

Mark Cuban 47:56 Scale

Trevor Noah 47:56 ... right. They're just in the right position.

Mark Cuban 47:58 Exactly right. They just have scale, and it's the way it's always been done, and we are gonna fuck 'em up. I promise you with everything I have.

Trevor Noah 48:05 I, I hope so, man. I really, really hope so. I feel like if, if there's one person who can do it, it's you. You've been doing that your whole life. You've found, you've found the gaps. You've found the opportunities. You've found the moments where, where there's ... You know? And, and I think what I appreciate about this situation is that there's a lesson that I, I think many people don't seem to understand, is that you can make money and you can profit whilst not completely just, like, ripping people off-

Mark Cuban 48:32 Oh, for sure

Trevor Noah 48:33 ... and taking everything away from them.

Mark Cuban 48:34 For sure.

Trevor Noah 48:34 You know? And you're seeing that, you're seeing that right now in America where, like, you know, like, obviously inflation is up, and, uh, you know, post-COVID, everything shot up. And, but then you see these companies where they used that opportunity to raise their prices more than-

Mark Cuban 48:47 And squeeze, yeah

Trevor Noah 48:47 ... they would have normally.

Mark Cuban 48:48 And squeeze, yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 48:49 Yeah, which is, which is crazy.

Mark Cuban 48:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 48:51 It's like you can still make a profit without-

Mark Cuban 48:53 Look

Trevor Noah 48:53 ... completely ripping people off.

Mark Cuban 48:55 The most important product for any company starting right now, or any company, period, is trust. Because nobody-

Trevor Noah 49:02 Yeah

Mark Cuban 49:02 ... trusts anybody at all. And that's why-

Trevor Noah 49:05 Yeah

Mark Cuban 49:05 ... in healthcare, by being transparent, we build trust. Because that really, right?

Trevor Noah 49:10 Hmm.

Mark Cuban 49:10 Where our prices are important, the fact that we're transparent, trust is our number one product.

Trevor Noah 49:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Mark Cuban 49:16 Companies are starting to realize that, and more and more, particularly young entrepreneurs, recognize that I can do well by doing good or do good by doing well, right? And I think-

Trevor Noah 49:27 Yeah, I like that

Mark Cuban 49:27 ... that's really changing things. Now, it's obviously, like you said, there's companies like, you know, you, you look at your water bot- water bottle, it used to be 24 ounces, now it's 23 ounces. Your cereal-

Trevor Noah 49:38 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 49:38 ... used to be 12 ounces, now it's 11 ounces. But we don't raise our prices, right?

Trevor Noah 49:41 That shrinkage is slick.

Mark Cuban 49:42 Yeah. It's really slick-

Trevor Noah 49:43 Yeah

Mark Cuban 49:43 ... right? But there's a real opportunity for entrepreneurs there, uh, you know, if you can just live up to the trust that people expect.

Trevor Noah 49:51 You've stepped into multiple differ- different fields and you've disrupted them. You know, um, you, you came into sports with a new attitude. You've stepped into medicine with a new attitude. A lot of people may not know this, but really one of the biggest things you did was in tech. You know, you, you were taught... You self-taught when it came to coding. You knew computers were gonna be huge. You were working on networks as, as, as a youngster.

Mark Cuban 50:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:14 You were really ahead of the game when it came to this. I'd love to know what you think of, of this, this next revolution that we're, that we- that we're witnessing right now. You know, AI-

Mark Cuban 50:24 AI, yeah

Trevor Noah 50:25 ... is, is ubiquitous. AI is in everything everywhere you go now-

Mark Cuban 50:30 Yep

Trevor Noah 50:30 ... from your car rental agency to your language learning app to, you know, me- you name it-

Mark Cuban 50:37 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 50:37 ... AI is involved. And, you know, obviously there's, there's gonna be benefits, and then there are also things-

Mark Cuban 50:44 Sure

Trevor Noah 50:44 ... you know, that, that we should, that we should be wary about. But as somebody who has not just made a lot of money in tech, but also spent a lot of time, uh, in tech, like, what, what are your, what are your views on AI? What's, what's your-

Mark Cuban 50:57 So from a business perspective, there's only two types of companies: the companies that are great at AI-

Trevor Noah 51:01 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 51:02 ... and everybody else. That's it. You have to know AI, AI. And AI breaks into, both for our regular lives and business lives, AI breaks into two types. One, there's the large language models, the ChatGPT, and that's really the-

Trevor Noah 51:15 Right, right

Mark Cuban 51:15 ... the biggest important part. And then there's just using AI for optimization, right? You know, how do I ship my widgets faster and better and cheaper than before? But for the large language models, they're going... it's gonna change everything.

Trevor Noah 51:25 Mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 51:26 Some little kid born today, their life is going to be insane, and I'll give you an example. Um, right now, like I have emails, like I said, I do everything via email, right? If I were to take all those emails that I have going back 30 years and put them into a large language model, and I created-

Trevor Noah 51:43 Yeah

Mark Cuban 51:43 ... a hologram of myself, I actually have a company who does holograms, um, Hypervision, and combine those two together, you could have this conversation with my hologram, and if the quality of the hologram was good enough, you wouldn't know it wasn't me. Because a large language model is able to ingest as much information from a person, by a person, about a person as you can-

Trevor Noah 52:04 As you, as you can feed it, yeah

Mark Cuban 52:05 ... right. Now imagine that for your little baby, and all those videos we take on our phone, all the first goo goo ga ga's-

Trevor Noah 52:12 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 52:12 ... all the first steps, all their papers, all their drawings, and you put that into, you know, Trevor's baby's large language model.

Trevor Noah 52:20 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mark Cuban 52:21 By the time that you're doing that for 10, 12 years, that best friend is [laughs] that little kid's best friend is themself out of a large language model. It is going to be-

Trevor Noah 52:32 Oh, that's scary

Mark Cuban 52:33 ... insane, insane.

Trevor Noah 52:35 That is, that is scary though.

Mark Cuban 52:35 Every kid-

Trevor Noah 52:36 That is scary

Mark Cuban 52:36 ... just like kids now have social media accounts-

Trevor Noah 52:39 Yeah

Mark Cuban 52:39 ... they will have their own large language models. There'll be hun- tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of large language models. Every kid will have their own. It may run their social media for them.

Trevor Noah 52:50 It's funny, it's funny you say that. One of the, one of the biggest, um, uh, I would say one of the biggest GPTs that's been hyped, so you know ChatGPT has these, you know, the offshoots-

Mark Cuban 53:01 Sure

Trevor Noah 53:01 ... where people can create their own and sell them off.

Mark Cuban 53:03 Right.

Trevor Noah 53:03 And even though they've basically banned it, one that's really popular is, uh, a ChatGPT girlfriend or boyfriend.

Mark Cuban 53:11 Oh, yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:12 And what... Yeah, and what people are doing now is they're actually dating their ChatGPT.

Mark Cuban 53:17 Yes.

Trevor Noah 53:18 And people are saying that they... People are saying they're having more fulfilling relationships-

Mark Cuban 53:21 Of course they are, because-

Trevor Noah 53:22 ... they feel less lonely-

Mark Cuban 53:23 [laughs] Of course

Trevor Noah 53:23 ... they feel more connected.

Mark Cuban 53:25 Of course. I mean, think about, you know, when you were a teenager, no matter what generation, right? You're sitting in front of a TV, you're listening to music, and you're connecting to your music, right? And your music-

Trevor Noah 53:36 Right

Mark Cuban 53:36 ... spiritually fulfilled you, or you're teaching yourself an instrument, or you're, you know, you, you buy yourself a little guitar. Like, I remember sitting for hours trying to, you know, C, D, G, right?

Trevor Noah 53:46 [laughs]

Mark Cuban 53:46 And just teach myself, you know? And we fi- we try to connect in whatever way, emotionally, spiritually, whatever it may be, that we can. And this is-

Trevor Noah 53:55 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 53:55 ... a way where they don't fight back, right? And they work on your schedule, and you don't have to be an expert, and there's no expectations. And now, you know, on the extremes, there's always gonna be negative consequences, right? Somebody takes it too far one way or the other. But in the middle-

Trevor Noah 54:12 Yeah

Mark Cuban 54:12 ... I think it's a positive, right? Because there's somebody there to talk to. There's somebody there, and with all these tens of millions of large language models, you'll be able to say, you know, there's this psychologist or psych- you know, psychiatrist, whatever it may be, social worker, who has some really interesting things. I'm gonna get that module for my 15-year-old, because I think having that something s- that large language model to talk to that I know-

Trevor Noah 54:38 Yeah, yeah

Mark Cuban 54:38 ... has been influenced by somebody I trust is going to be a positive.

Trevor Noah 54:42 Man, it's, uh, it, it, it's, it is both equally... It's terrifying and exciting in equal measure because we don't know what to expect.

Mark Cuban 54:52 Exactly right.

Trevor Noah 54:52 It's one of the few times in human history where we're living, we're living on the precipice. Um-

Mark Cuban 54:57 You don't live in the world you were born into, you know?

Trevor Noah 55:00 Yeah, right? Yeah, that's, that's, that's a great way to put it. Um, so Mark, I'm gonna ask you a question that I, that I ask all my guests on the podcast, and that is what now? I feel like it's the perfect time to ask it to you because you're opening up space and place in your life, and you've answered some of it, but, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're stepping away from some of the positions you hold, uh, on the basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. You are, you know, gonna be stepping away from Shark Tank in a year. So, so, so what now? What does, what does Mark Cuban look at as the next era of, of his life?

Mark Cuban 55:34 I mean, my kids and healthcare, right? I mean, I just... You know, I, I'm not someone who thinks about legacy a lot. I'm not, certainly not the type of person to put my name on a building. [laughs] But at the same-

Trevor Noah 55:45 Right

Mark Cuban 55:45 ... time, I think if I can have enough of an impact on healthcare where, you know, people don't have to stress about it the way they are, where people, you know, we get to a point where healthcare is a right. You know, it's not an affordability issue.

Trevor Noah 56:00 Yeah.

Mark Cuban 56:00 I, I think we can get-

Trevor Noah 56:01 Mm-hmm

Mark Cuban 56:01 ... there. When I, when I look at what I know now about healthcare, there's a lot that can be stripped away, and there's a path to get there that's not as difficult, I think, as people think. And so if I can just keep on grinding it out every single day and just, you know, taking another brick out of that wall, um, I think, I think there's a lot of really cool changes that can happen that can make this country a better place.

Trevor Noah 56:24 That's a fantastic idea to have for your future, you know, spending more time with family and trying to help other people, um, spend more time with their families-

Mark Cuban 56:32 Yeah

Trevor Noah 56:32 ... ironically, because of their health. Well, uh, Mark Cuban, thank you for the time.

Mark Cuban 56:36 Thanks, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 56:36 Thank you for your insights. And, uh, yeah, good luck for the season and everything else that you do, my friend.

Mark Cuban 56:41 I appreciate it. Thanks, Trevor. Always fun. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 56:50 What Now? with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions, Fullwell 73, and Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Barry Finkel. Produced by Emmanuel Hapsis, Marina Henke, Jess Hackel, Natalie Pert, and Chelsea Williamson. Music mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?