Full Transcript for Mark Cuban: Losing Luka, Fighting Big Pharma & Partying Like a Rock Star

00:04:11.067 --> 00:04:13.470 Well, if you put it that way, I killed it. 63 00:04:13.630 --> 00:04:14.971 You know, I learned how to sell. 64 00:04:15.632 --> 00:04:22.179 When you were, as a 12-year-old, taking that initiative to start us jobs, did you need the money or you just wanted the experience? 65 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:22.800 No, I needed it. 66 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:24.582 Yeah, my dad was really clear. 67 00:04:24.762 --> 00:04:30.188 You know, what led to the garbage bags was a bunch of his buddies over playing poker at our house. 68 00:04:30.688 --> 00:04:32.649 And I'd go in there, pick up a donut or whatever. 69 00:04:33.029 --> 00:04:35.271 And I was like, dad, can I get some new basketball shoes? 70 00:04:35.491 --> 00:04:36.311 And he looked at my feet. 71 00:04:36.331 --> 00:04:38.492 He goes, those shoes look like they're pretty good. 72 00:04:38.852 --> 00:04:40.954 When you have a job, you can get whatever you want. 73 00:04:41.014 --> 00:04:42.835 And I was like, dad, I'm 12 years old. 74 00:04:43.215 --> 00:04:44.876 You know, and he's like, well, when you get a job. 75 00:04:45.176 --> 00:04:50.479 And it was because one of his buddies who was playing poker with, probably drunk, said, I got all these boxes of garbage bags. 76 00:04:50.499 --> 00:04:51.799 Why don't you sell them in the neighborhood? 77 00:04:52.340 --> 00:04:53.460 I was like, dad, can I do it? 78 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:54.441 And he was like, sure. 79 00:04:55.161 --> 00:04:56.102 And that was the start of it. 80 00:04:56.502 --> 00:04:57.823 The more that you succeed, 81 00:04:58.809 --> 00:05:07.837 the more that you validate that you're a fucking smart guy, the more that you're in danger that you might think you have the answers. 82 00:05:07.917 --> 00:05:14.583 What do you do to keep questioning yourself, to keep staying curious and not assuming that you have the answers? 83 00:05:14.703 --> 00:05:16.545 Yeah, I mean, you get humbled early in business. 84 00:05:17.051 --> 00:05:21.156 You know, early on, I might have thought, well, I'm smarter than them. 85 00:05:21.216 --> 00:05:22.277 I know what's going on. 86 00:05:22.718 --> 00:05:29.906 But then, you know, you make enough mistakes, you know, miss out on this deal or, you know, screw up this business or screw up that deal. 87 00:05:31.268 --> 00:05:32.530 You get humbled very quickly. 88 00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:34.292 But I'm also very competitive. 89 00:05:34.772 --> 00:05:43.794 And so, you know, the curiosity and the competitive nature just means I'm always trying to learn more, learn more, learn more to give myself a competitive advantage. 90 00:05:43.814 --> 00:05:47.395 If you talk to yourself like, oh, shit, I got too cocky, adjust. 91 00:05:47.415 --> 00:05:48.935 Because I'm always criticizing myself. 92 00:05:48.955 --> 00:05:50.855 I'm always in a debate with myself. 93 00:05:50.995 --> 00:05:52.516 Oh, I went too far here. 94 00:05:52.536 --> 00:05:52.916 I went too there. 95 00:05:53.296 --> 00:05:53.696 Do you do that? 96 00:05:53.716 --> 00:05:54.156 Yeah, of course. 97 00:05:54.216 --> 00:05:58.617 I mean, because you don't ever know the answer until you get into the room. 98 00:05:59.211 --> 00:06:01.153 You know, oh, I think I know what they're going to need. 99 00:06:01.193 --> 00:06:04.775 Or I think I know how I'm going to create this company or run this company. 100 00:06:05.216 --> 00:06:09.759 And then stuff happens where, you know, I call it always questioning my whole card. 101 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:17.025 You know, like if you ever play blackjack or poker, you know, you've got a six underneath there, but you still got to look 15 times, right? 102 00:06:17.345 --> 00:06:20.048 It's just human nature to keep on looking. 103 00:06:20.668 --> 00:06:22.349 And that's checking your whole card. 104 00:06:22.409 --> 00:06:27.854 And so even though I might think I know something and have an edge, I'm always going to check and recheck. 105 00:06:28.354 --> 00:06:33.557 Did you develop the instinct to check your whole car on your own? 106 00:06:34.237 --> 00:06:35.958 Did it come naturally? 107 00:06:35.978 --> 00:06:39.100 Was there something in your childhood that your parents taught you that you observed? 108 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:48.384 If people want to learn to be critical thinkers, to question assumptions, to do that, to... One of the things that I noticed is that not everybody has conversations with themselves. 109 00:06:48.445 --> 00:06:49.125 Yeah, I have. 110 00:06:49.545 --> 00:06:50.686 Yeah, I don't know why not. 111 00:06:50.706 --> 00:06:56.709 I don't know why not, but how can you, to the extent that people are watching, they want to learn from you, how can they develop that? 112 00:06:56.729 --> 00:07:02.672 Or does it just come or it's something that you can think of happen that helped you start having those conversations with yourself? 113 00:07:02.692 --> 00:07:07.635 I mean, I remember my mom telling me every time she would read to me, I would ask her why, why, why, why, why? 114 00:07:07.655 --> 00:07:09.315 And I would never let her get through a paragraph. 115 00:07:09.756 --> 00:07:10.556 Why are they doing this? 116 00:07:10.596 --> 00:07:11.717 Why, why, why, why, why? 117 00:07:12.317 --> 00:07:13.518 And I think, you know. 118 00:07:14.438 --> 00:07:15.919 It really depends on having a goal. 119 00:07:16.459 --> 00:07:17.400 Was your mom okay with it? 120 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:18.520 Or was she like, shut up? 121 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:21.742 No, no, she was okay with it because she knew I'd just fall asleep in a minute. 122 00:07:22.662 --> 00:07:26.444 But, and she was kind of the same way, very cynical and questioning. 123 00:07:26.744 --> 00:07:29.906 And whereas my dad was not, he was the opposite. 124 00:07:30.506 --> 00:07:32.627 But, you know, you're... 125 00:07:34.116 --> 00:07:39.778 If you have a goal and you're trying to accomplish it, again, it's a lot like sports.

126 00:07:39.858 --> 00:07:44.600 It's a lot like music, you know, where in sports, there's another team. 127 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:49.202 And you might have a goal to win, to, you know, make a basket, whatever it is. 128 00:07:49.662 --> 00:07:55.384 And you might think you have the right play, but you have to ask yourself, what could they possibly do? 129 00:07:56.283 --> 00:07:58.844 You know, and it's the same thing in business. 130 00:07:59.444 --> 00:08:01.285 You know, it's the exact same as a sport. 131 00:08:01.305 --> 00:08:13.069 And I think that's why you see athletes do really well in business a lot of times because they're used to always having to prepare, to always have to, you know, optimize how they're preparing. 132 00:08:13.549 --> 00:08:17.631 And then always be prepared to respond to whatever the opponent does. 133 00:08:18.391 --> 00:08:24.674 And whether you're playing tennis, whether you're playing basketball, whether you're playing soccer, whatever it is, you're always going to have to respond. 134 00:08:24.714 --> 00:08:26.375 And I think they go hand in hand. 135 00:08:26.675 --> 00:08:38.921 And if you've never been in it, and I think, you know, when you look at Silicon Valley, and it's a great question, Jenny, when you look at Silicon Valley, they think they're so much smarter than everybody that they don't have that internal dialogue. 136 00:08:39.281 --> 00:08:39.461 Right. 137 00:08:39.521 --> 00:08:43.263 They don't question what everybody else is going to do. 138 00:08:43.623 --> 00:08:44.764 They just presume they're right. 139 00:08:44.784 --> 00:08:45.164 Right. 140 00:08:45.514 --> 00:08:53.858 And I think that is creating a lot of problems as it relates to AI and people understanding AI and what the expectations are. 141 00:08:54.238 --> 00:08:56.159 And it creates problems for them. 142 00:08:56.819 --> 00:09:02.242 I really like how you combine curiosity with that competitive thing because that combo, I think, does a lot of what you said. 143 00:09:02.682 --> 00:09:07.424 Forces you to be questioning yourself and think how the other side thinks and put yourself in other people's shoes. 144 00:09:07.444 --> 00:09:10.506 I also like when you're talking about your mom reading you, 145 00:09:11.086 --> 00:09:16.513 I think one of the things we do wrong in society today, and I'm trying to learn from it, but I get it wrong. 146 00:09:16.533 --> 00:09:22.241 Sometimes we don't want our kids to ask us a thousand questions, but the fact is we should encourage them to think outside the box. 147 00:09:22.301 --> 00:09:23.483 We should encourage them to ask why. 148 00:09:23.523 --> 00:09:23.963 Of course. 149 00:09:24.264 --> 00:09:27.368 Asking why is probably one of the most important tools for our kids. 150 00:09:27.728 --> 00:09:52.082 entrepreneur because then you ask why not and then you right of course you i mean you're looking for holes and you know what what can i solve what can i do better how can i optimize what are they not thinking what can i come up with that somebody hasn't come up with and then you got to do the work to figure it out right because everybody's got a good idea that's the american dream right there's nobody in this country once you get to the age of 21 who hasn't thought oh i got this business idea 151 00:09:52.622 --> 00:09:54.425 And then they go to their friends, what do you think? 152 00:09:54.445 --> 00:09:56.147 And the friends go, that's not a bad idea. 153 00:09:56.528 --> 00:10:01.074 Then you go on Google or Claude or ChatGPT and you ask about it, right? 154 00:10:01.835 --> 00:10:04.158 And then you think, oh, maybe I can do this. 155 00:10:04.739 --> 00:10:05.841 And then most people just stop. 156 00:10:06.626 --> 00:10:09.990 It's not that people aren't considering or trying or thinking. 157 00:10:10.471 --> 00:10:14.035 It's just, it's hard to make the commitment to do something. 158 00:10:14.075 --> 00:10:17.239 And Damon on Shark Tank, a lot of time talks about the power of broke. 159 00:10:17.699 --> 00:10:21.163 And I think when people are comfortable, it's harder for them to make those choices. 160 00:10:21.704 --> 00:10:24.707 But when they're uncomfortable, sometimes you got no choice. 161 00:10:25.208 --> 00:10:28.229 You know, when you're broke and you got nothing to lose. 162 00:10:28.749 --> 00:10:34.011 You know, when I got fired from a job here in Dallas, I was living six guys in a three bedroom apartment. 163 00:10:34.431 --> 00:10:37.352 I was like, I'm starting my own business now because I got nothing to lose. 164 00:10:37.372 --> 00:10:41.093 And you got fired because you had the temerity to close a deal or something. 165 00:10:41.113 --> 00:10:46.275 Yeah, because I wanted to go out and I was living in the shithole that I lived in with all these roommates. 166 00:10:46.915 --> 00:10:52.477 And I was like, I need to get this commission check, which would have been $1,500, which would have got me out of the place. 167 00:10:53.157 --> 00:10:58.979 And so, you know, the owner of the store that I worked at, the software store, says, no, I need you to come in. 168 00:10:59.019 --> 00:11:02.820 I'm like, but Michael, I got this all figured and, you know, it's all taken care of. 169 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:06.441 And I made the executive decision to go out and pick up the check. 170 00:11:07.041 --> 00:11:07.682 Fired my ass. 171 00:11:07.942 --> 00:11:09.222 Was he intimidated? 172 00:11:09.242 --> 00:11:10.022 Why did that? 173 00:11:10.382 --> 00:11:11.223 I have no idea. 174 00:11:11.243 --> 00:11:11.303 Um. 175 00:11:12.458 --> 00:11:14.419 You know, they didn't stay in business very much longer. 176 00:11:14.439 --> 00:11:16.020 It was also a blessing that. 177 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:16.941 Oh, yeah. 178 00:11:17.021 --> 00:11:18.282 It's amazing that it happened to me. 179 00:11:18.382 --> 00:11:19.322 Right. 180 00:11:19.422 --> 00:11:24.225 Just because at that point it was time to go

and create micro solutions. 181 00:11:24.305 --> 00:11:27.007 And I mean, I had no money, literally. 182 00:11:27.467 --> 00:11:36.072 And I had to pretty much beg this company called Architectural Lighting to put up enough money to pay for the software that they needed because I couldn't. 183 00:11:36.112 --> 00:11:37.113 I had no money to buy it. 184 00:11:37.533 --> 00:11:40.214 I had somebody who would come into the retail store I worked at. 185 00:11:40.994 --> 00:11:45.556 And after I got fired, I went to them and said, look, I know you needed this software. 186 00:11:46.296 --> 00:11:50.018 And if you'll front me the $500, I'll promise to make it work. 187 00:11:50.038 --> 00:11:53.319 And if it doesn't, I'll wash your car, walk your dog, whatever. 188 00:11:53.619 --> 00:11:53.859 Right. 189 00:11:54.439 --> 00:11:55.820 And fortunately, they said yes. 190 00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:58.361 But now I had the $250 margin. 191 00:11:58.741 --> 00:12:01.682 I had to find another customer and another customer and another customer and 192 00:12:02.403 --> 00:12:04.808 And it was all out of necessity. 193 00:12:05.068 --> 00:12:05.609 So it was just... 194 00:12:06.110 --> 00:12:08.996 It wasn't like you wrote that 30-page business plan. 195 00:12:09.156 --> 00:12:09.257 No. 196 00:12:09.657 --> 00:12:09.838 No. 197 00:12:09.858 --> 00:12:10.759 Just starting the show. 198 00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:11.962 No, what I wrote was... 199 00:12:13.837 --> 00:12:18.479 I had to come up with a name and I was just like, well, I need to make it so it's very descriptive. 200 00:12:18.999 --> 00:12:21.459 And then I found out afterward, that's called a one inch name, right? 201 00:12:21.800 --> 00:12:25.961 Where it's very descriptive, micro solutions, micro computers solutions. 202 00:12:26.441 --> 00:12:27.961 And then I, and I still have this. 203 00:12:28.101 --> 00:12:34.003 I wrote up a one pager, actually two pager on what we can do for your company. 204 00:12:34.203 --> 00:12:37.264 So I have a drop off, you know, we're going to make you more competitive. 205 00:12:37.284 --> 00:12:37.944 How old were you? 206 00:12:38.265 --> 00:12:38.605 I was 24. 207 00:12:38.625 --> 00:12:38.745 Wow. 208 00:12:40.365 --> 00:12:42.847 And we were going to make you competitive. 209 00:12:42.907 --> 00:12:46.629 We're going to make you more productive, more profitable by showing you. 210 00:12:46.649 --> 00:12:51.232 Because at this point in time, it's the early 80s, people didn't by default have computers. 211 00:12:51.852 --> 00:12:52.933 It was new to everybody. 212 00:12:53.373 --> 00:12:58.396 And so I can walk in and if people wanted them to get a competitive advantage, and I could show them. 213 00:12:58.416 --> 00:13:04.400 And if I didn't know how to do it, I would stay up all night, literally stay up all night and teach myself. 214 00:13:10.097 --> 00:13:17.764 When it came to technology, you know, I didn't major in computers or anything like that, that, you know, if you had the time, if I had the time, I could teach myself. 215 00:13:18.424 --> 00:13:21.007 And it's kind of like a ball of thread is the way I would describe it. 216 00:13:21.447 --> 00:13:25.931 Once you got that basic role made, then you could just add new things and learn new things. 217 00:13:26.231 --> 00:13:29.074 And I think that was the takeaway for all businesses. 218 00:13:29.715 --> 00:13:41.046 Once you get into it and start understanding the elements of business and technology and the different types of businesses, they all have a lot of the same underpinnings and commonalities. 219 00:13:41.487 --> 00:13:44.670 You just then have to build on that for some specifics. 220 00:13:44.930 --> 00:13:53.557 I've heard you talk about how if you were young today, you'd get in on that AI thing and you'd go, and basically you give people advice to do what you did with microsolutions. 221 00:13:53.577 --> 00:13:54.378 Yeah, exactly the same thing. 222 00:13:54.398 --> 00:14:02.164 And it's weird because my son, who's 17, took your advice, and he's now providing AI solutions for other small businesses, and he is... 223 00:14:02.845 --> 00:14:05.587 He's, I guess, something like you. 224 00:14:05.627 --> 00:14:07.729 He was very much into basketball. 225 00:14:08.249 --> 00:14:09.750 He woke up and did basketball. 226 00:14:09.770 --> 00:14:12.812 When he was done with basketball, he'd do basketball. 227 00:14:12.872 --> 00:14:15.975 And then when he was done with that basketball, it was basketball. 228 00:14:16.535 --> 00:14:25.101 And just in the last few months, all of a sudden, he's just so in love with entrepreneurship and he's doing the AI stuff and literally following on the work model. 229 00:14:25.121 --> 00:14:27.143 Whenever you have a transition in technology... 230 00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:39.951 The way I would describe it back then and now is most people that run companies, no matter what the size, they're just trying to be competitive and make some money, pay their bills, pay their employees bills. 231 00:14:40.312 --> 00:14:45.437 And there's so many stress levels and stress factors that go into running any kind of business. 232 00:14:45.957 --> 00:14:50.602 It's not their job to have to understand every technology. 233 00:14:51.362 --> 00:14:52.403 And some people try. 234 00:14:52.824 --> 00:14:55.226 Some people have employees that try to do all that for them. 235 00:14:55.646 --> 00:15:09.519 But if you can come in, particularly with a new company technology, back then it was PCs and software, now AI, and be able to understand their business and show them how to apply it so that they're more competitive, more productive, more profitable. 236 00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:10.861 They're going to listen. 237 00:15:11.181 --> 00:15:12.623 Right now, I still can keep up with it. 238 00:15:13.124 --> 00:15:16.528 But like, is your personality such that you will never have that problem? 239 00:15:16.728 --> 00:15:20.573 Or as we

get older, eventually some new technology is going to dump us? 240 00:15:20.593 --> 00:15:21.514 No, I'll always do it. 241 00:15:22.035 --> 00:15:23.336 But there's always stuff like... 242 00:15:24.065 --> 00:15:41.438 With AI or any programming language, I'm not going to be the all-time expert and know all the nuanced elements of doing a harness on AI right now and doing security, analytics, all that kind of stuff. 243 00:15:41.458 --> 00:15:42.519 Are you leaning enough to... 244 00:15:43.119 --> 00:15:45.560 I'll learn enough to know how it applies to business. 245 00:15:46.060 --> 00:15:55.703 So I can sit and talk with the foremost expert in AI and look at a business and understand here's how you can use that AI to help the business. 246 00:15:56.044 --> 00:16:07.147 Or we're not to use it because AI is a lot more complicated when you try to implement it at a high level in a business than just doing agents or basic prompting. 247 00:16:07.328 --> 00:16:11.329 I sold Kind, my final stake in Kind a year and a half ago, and I'm... 248 00:16:12.310 --> 00:16:17.754 I'm very blessed, but it's harder than I thought because I miss it. 249 00:16:17.774 --> 00:16:25.799 And sometimes I think they're doing a good job with preserving the quality of the products, but it's hard to preserve that entrepreneurial zeal. 250 00:16:25.959 --> 00:16:26.299 Of course. 251 00:16:26.379 --> 00:16:29.501 And with the Mavericks, they traded- Oh, it drives me crazy, yeah. 252 00:16:29.842 --> 00:16:30.902 How the hell do you deal with that? 253 00:16:31.723 --> 00:16:33.004 I don't do, not very well. 254 00:16:34.625 --> 00:16:35.625 Not very well at all. 255 00:16:35.645 --> 00:16:37.767 But I saw for a while you were not saying anything. 256 00:16:37.947 --> 00:16:39.388 Yeah, it was just, you know, 257 00:16:40.688 --> 00:16:44.512 Like after I sold MicroSolutions, I sold it to CompuServe, owned by H&R Block. 258 00:16:45.153 --> 00:16:47.275 And they did a lot of things that I didn't agree with. 259 00:16:47.395 --> 00:16:50.598 And it took a couple years for me to, okay, get past it. 260 00:16:51.218 --> 00:16:54.642 And then with Broadcast.com, same thing. 261 00:16:54.762 --> 00:16:57.024 Yahoo just tore it apart. 262 00:16:57.224 --> 00:17:02.169 And then with the Mavs, it was like, okay, you know, we... 263 00:17:03.188 --> 00:17:06.210 I'm not going to get into the details of what I expected versus what happened. 264 00:17:06.730 --> 00:17:10.413 But, you know, obviously trading Luca and a bunch of other things. 265 00:17:11.573 --> 00:17:16.556 And I literally would remind myself that in her dialogue, look, you went through it with Microsolutions. 266 00:17:16.596 --> 00:17:18.438 You went through it with Broadcast.com. 267 00:17:19.058 --> 00:17:20.959 You know, the Mavs are one more example. 268 00:17:21.600 --> 00:17:27.743 And it's not necessarily a bad thing because Cost Plus Drugs is just blowing up and changing healthcare. 269 00:17:28.304 --> 00:17:29.965 And that's more important than basketball. 270 00:17:29.985 --> 00:17:30.365 Yeah. 271 00:17:30.465 --> 00:17:34.449 But I felt really bad because I felt like I let Mavs fans down. 272 00:17:34.850 --> 00:17:37.292 It wasn't so much the Mavericks per se. 273 00:17:37.793 --> 00:17:45.942 It was, you know, how Mavs fans feel about the Mavericks and the expectations they had and just some of the stupid shit that went down. 274 00:17:46.242 --> 00:17:50.186 I feel like the Mavericks are part of your identity. 275 00:17:51.218 --> 00:17:53.899 They were, but, you know, and that's an interesting point, right? 276 00:17:53.919 --> 00:17:59.741 Because like David Stern got, you know, rest in peace, David, was commissioner of the NBA. 277 00:18:00.481 --> 00:18:06.783 And he used to always, after I got on Shark Tank, which was like 2010, and he died in 2012. 278 00:18:07.664 --> 00:18:11.745 And in that interim period, like we were doing this event at the New York Times. 279 00:18:11.765 --> 00:18:12.385 2012, wow. 280 00:18:13.146 --> 00:18:14.006 I love David Stern. 281 00:18:14.026 --> 00:18:14.846 David was a good man, yeah. 282 00:18:14.866 --> 00:18:16.087 I believe it's been already that long. 283 00:18:16.107 --> 00:18:16.787 That long, yeah. 284 00:18:16.807 --> 00:18:16.907 Yeah. 285 00:18:17.542 --> 00:18:22.384 And I was doing an event with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times. 286 00:18:23.144 --> 00:18:28.587 And they put David up in the balcony just to scream at me, right? 287 00:18:30.047 --> 00:18:31.788 And he was like, I made you. 288 00:18:32.008 --> 00:18:32.768 I made you. 289 00:18:33.389 --> 00:18:34.049 And it's true. 290 00:18:34.189 --> 00:18:35.069 He did, right? 291 00:18:35.109 --> 00:18:46.054 Because it was our conflict and him finding me and me doing it my own way as opposed to the way other owners had always done it is really what made people pay attention to me. 292 00:18:46.694 --> 00:18:50.115 And so it was a big part of my identity. 293 00:18:50.475 --> 00:18:54.297 But then I got to the point where, you know, pre-social media was fun. 294 00:18:55.197 --> 00:19:04.240 And then just, you know, that, you know, I'm not Tom Cruise, you know, B-level, whatever it is, but it got to be, it's annoying, right? 295 00:19:04.280 --> 00:19:09.882 Enough people recognize me that I can get tables and I can get in places and I can show up places. 296 00:19:10.402 --> 00:19:13.983 But yeah, in terms of identity, 297 00:19:15.387 --> 00:19:20.109 I think it's just not the same as it was and not as important as I thought it would be. 298 00:19:20.369 --> 00:19:29.632 The third thing that I noticed that I want to bring up that I really like and admire is how lean and mean you are. 299 00:19:29.772 --> 00:19:34.814 In Shark Tank, some of our fellow sharks bring a coterie of people. 300 00:19:34.854 --> 00:19:35.995 Like, I'm like in the middle. 301 00:19:36.535 --> 00:19:37.975 I bring two or three team members. 302

00:19:39.476 --> 00:19:42.637 Some of our fellow sharks bring like eight people. 303 00:19:43.237 --> 00:19:44.838 You were there with one person. 304 00:19:45.753 --> 00:19:46.294 Yeah, Stephen. 305 00:19:46.734 --> 00:19:47.915 How the hell do you do that? 306 00:19:47.935 --> 00:19:54.001 Like, it's not that I'm a snob, but for me to operate and try to build different things, I have a team. 307 00:19:54.102 --> 00:19:54.802 It's all simple. 308 00:19:55.183 --> 00:19:56.464 It's all simple stuff, right? 309 00:19:56.784 --> 00:19:57.785 Stephen sits there. 310 00:19:57.825 --> 00:19:58.967 Then he does due diligence. 311 00:19:59.387 --> 00:20:00.468 They give me the feedback. 312 00:20:00.548 --> 00:20:01.509 I say yes or no. 313 00:20:01.589 --> 00:20:03.691 You know, if they... 314 00:20:04.412 --> 00:20:04.892 Who's they? 315 00:20:05.733 --> 00:20:12.898 At the entrepreneurs, when I do a deal, told the truth, right, and we're accurate in their numbers, then we do the deal. 316 00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:19.163 You know, if we do due diligence, you know how it works, and they're not always telling the truth or accurate, then we don't do the deal. 317 00:20:19.183 --> 00:20:20.104 It's really simple stuff. 318 00:20:20.244 --> 00:20:25.548 Is there any tip you can give me and others about how to do things in such a lean way? 319 00:20:25.988 --> 00:20:29.411 So I'm very, my organizations are very flat. 320 00:20:30.208 --> 00:20:39.074 I don't have managers managing managers ever because that just creates scenarios where people want to create their own little fiefdom. 321 00:20:39.215 --> 00:20:48.021 And so who has more reportees and who's managed more whatever, who has a bigger budget, 322 00:20:48.521 --> 00:20:50.163 And so I don't do a lot with budgets. 323 00:20:50.223 --> 00:20:53.627 I don't do a lot with, you know, managers, managing managers. 324 00:20:53.987 --> 00:20:55.068 It's can you do the job? 325 00:20:55.128 --> 00:20:57.391 If you're the person to do the job, do the job. 326 00:20:57.431 --> 00:21:03.878 Let me know what you got to do and just send me an update, you know, cost plus it's a, I get a daily update. 327 00:21:04.378 --> 00:21:11.161 I'm a big believer in flat organizations, a big believer in empowering people, working directly with them, not having people in the broken telephone. 328 00:21:11.421 --> 00:21:14.223 But at some point when an organization gets big, is there any... Well, there's different. 329 00:21:14.243 --> 00:21:14.663 Yeah, no. 330 00:21:14.863 --> 00:21:19.545 As you grow, right, then you want to bring in people, again, who can just do the job. 331 00:21:20.165 --> 00:21:21.986 Just hire somebody who's qualified to do the job. 332 00:21:22.006 --> 00:21:22.986 Who rolls up their sleeves. 333 00:21:23.107 --> 00:21:25.207 Yeah, rolls up their sleeves and does the job. 334 00:21:25.568 --> 00:21:27.388 At cost plus, how many team members do you have, right? 335 00:21:27.609 --> 00:21:28.109 Oh, it's only 70. 336 00:21:29.358 --> 00:21:30.759 I mean, we're like, we are so lean. 337 00:21:30.779 --> 00:21:33.080 I mean, because we use AI and automation a lot. 338 00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:34.801 Robotics and AI. 339 00:21:34.881 --> 00:21:36.482 Can you walk us through your org chart? 340 00:21:37.182 --> 00:21:39.763 It's me and Alex, my co-founder. 341 00:21:40.383 --> 00:21:46.046 And I do more of the business side and the marketing and strategic side. 342 00:21:46.567 --> 00:21:49.028 And he does the AI and technology. 343 00:21:49.628 --> 00:22:12.085 the um robotic side and he's literally a doctor a radiologist so he understands you know this drug that drug would work for a patient what won't work for him so below you and alex how many direct reports are there that for you maybe six what like what would be the core function so um partnerships operations manufacturing operations um 344 00:22:14.897 --> 00:22:21.140 Financial CFO, Aaron, who does our partnerships with pharmacies. 345 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:27.282 What are those things called that are like part of the problem, the pharmacy benefit? 346 00:22:27.422 --> 00:22:28.603 Pharmacy benefit managers, yeah. 347 00:22:28.743 --> 00:22:31.524 Do you work with them or do you bypass them? 348 00:22:31.724 --> 00:22:36.306 We bypass the very big ones and we work with the small ones who are trying to take on the big ones. 349 00:22:36.867 --> 00:22:39.608 So if they're transparent and transparent, 350 00:22:40.288 --> 00:22:43.912 do it the right way, there's like 40 of them that we work with and partner with. 351 00:22:44.533 --> 00:22:48.978 If you are part of the problem, there's... Can you explain briefly the problem? 352 00:22:49.058 --> 00:22:52.522 Because it was a really big pain point, the way that... 353 00:22:52.542 --> 00:22:53.162 It still is, yeah. 354 00:22:53.182 --> 00:22:54.244 Can you explain it briefly? 355 00:22:54.264 --> 00:23:01.732 Yeah, so when you pick your insurance plan, you have your medical benefits and your pharmacy benefits. 356 00:23:02.674 --> 00:23:10.456 And when you need a prescription, your doctor gives you a prescription and you tell them what pharmacy you work with and they send it there. 357 00:23:10.476 --> 00:23:13.357 Hopefully it's costless drugs, but if not, you send it wherever. 358 00:23:14.017 --> 00:23:24.919 Then that pharmacist, you come to the counter or it's mail order and the pharmacist checks to make sure there's no problems and they have a claim, right? 359 00:23:25.439 --> 00:23:31.861 Where you're saying, okay, I have this prescription and the claim manages the economics of the prescription. 360 00:23:32.721 --> 00:23:40.544 And that pharmacy sends it through these intermediary switches and hubs that are just part of the transaction. 361 00:23:41.084 --> 00:23:57.170 But the company that sets the pricing and sets all the reimbursements and the charges to the employer or the out-of-pocket to the patient, that's called a pharmacy

benefit manager. 362 00:23:57.950 --> 00:24:01.032 And the pharmacy, there's three big ones that control 85% of the market. 363 00:24:02.522 --> 00:24:12.867 And because they control 85% of the market, they're able to go to the big brand manufacturers, the Lilies, the Pfizer's, the BMS, and say, look, we have 85% of the market. 364 00:24:13.527 --> 00:24:22.631 If you want all the 150 million people who get their insurance from their employer to have access to your medication, 365 00:24:24.872 --> 00:24:28.594 And so it actually is almost like a mafia, a mafia. 366 00:24:28.614 --> 00:24:32.677 Like they're actually making it more expensive because of that market. 367 00:24:32.697 --> 00:24:38.980 Because they benefit the more expensive of the drug, the more they can get paid via rebates and fees from the manufacturers. 368 00:24:39.360 --> 00:24:44.463 So what we said and then on top of that, to make matters worse, nobody knows what the actual price is. 369 00:24:45.404 --> 00:24:52.188 The employer, like for your employees, when you do this through your insurance plans, you have no idea what you pay for either medical or pharmacy. 370 00:24:52.603 --> 00:24:58.368 Not the pharmacy benefits do it on the medical side, clearing houses and the insurance carriers do it. 371 00:24:58.868 --> 00:25:04.613 I'm sorry, the pharmacy benefits do it on the pharmacy side and carriers and clearing houses do it on the medical side. 372 00:25:05.113 --> 00:25:07.255 You have no idea what you pay for anything on either side. 373 00:25:08.043 --> 00:25:11.345 Neither do any of your employees or their family, your members, right? 374 00:25:11.706 --> 00:25:12.686 Nobody has any idea. 375 00:25:13.327 --> 00:25:20.912 And because of that, you get a lot of people who find themselves in situations where they can't afford their medications or they have to ration it or ration other things. 376 00:25:21.413 --> 00:25:23.114 You know, can't pay their rent, whatever it may be. 377 00:25:23.594 --> 00:25:28.618 So we started Cost Plus Drugs under the premise that we're going to change that. 378 00:25:29.098 --> 00:25:32.380 You go to costplusdrugs.com, you put in the name of the medication. 379 00:25:32.721 --> 00:25:35.783 If it's one of the thousands that we carry, it comes up. 380 00:25:36.423 --> 00:25:37.844 And we'll show you our actual cost. 381 00:25:38.545 --> 00:25:40.746 And then we'll show you that we only market up 15%. 382 00:25:41.126 --> 00:25:42.588 So transparency. 383 00:25:42.688 --> 00:25:43.708 Transparency, right? 384 00:25:43.728 --> 00:25:44.689 It's hugely important. 385 00:25:44.709 --> 00:25:46.070 Right, because that's what builds trust. 386 00:25:46.510 --> 00:25:49.112 Trust equals transparency divided by self-interest. 387 00:25:49.452 --> 00:25:50.613 We're showing you our cost. 388 00:25:50.934 --> 00:25:52.975 We're showing you our markup's only 15%. 389 00:25:53.395 --> 00:25:56.498 Whereas the pharmacy benefit managers that companies work with 390 00:25:57.258 --> 00:25:59.520 They don't tell a cost at all. 391 00:26:00.681 --> 00:26:03.303 Cost Plus Drugs started shipping in January of 22. 392 00:26:03.343 --> 00:26:05.265 So we're four and a half years old. 393 00:26:05.765 --> 00:26:08.247 And we're still the only pharmacy that publishes a price list. 394 00:26:08.708 --> 00:26:11.010 We're still the only pharmacy that has an API. 395 00:26:11.290 --> 00:26:21.999 So you can pull our prices on a daily basis so that you can help your members, employees, families make a determination on the best way to buy or the best price for that drug. 396 00:26:22.500 --> 00:26:23.681 So here's my next question. 397 00:26:23.922 --> 00:26:25.844 And you and I have had many of these conversations. 398 00:26:25.864 --> 00:26:27.426 How do you change society for the better? 399 00:26:28.193 --> 00:26:39.517 And I for sure also prefer the market, but sometimes I think you need to change the regulation or do civic work, and you're very allergic to, you want to do the market, and here you did it really well. 400 00:26:40.037 --> 00:26:44.458 But my question is, do you still need legislation to change the PBE? 401 00:26:44.598 --> 00:26:45.819 Oh, it'd be a lot easier, right? 402 00:26:45.879 --> 00:26:49.560 Like there's a breakup big medicine bill from Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren. 403 00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:55.722 The big insurance companies, they own the biggest PBMs, where in one case, CVS owns Aetna. 404 00:26:56.824 --> 00:26:59.123 And so if you broke them up, 405 00:27:00.065 --> 00:27:00.945 It'd be a whole lot easier. 406 00:27:00.965 --> 00:27:02.145 How would that impact your business? 407 00:27:02.466 --> 00:27:04.806 Oh, it'd be great for our business, but more importantly... 408 00:27:04.826 --> 00:27:05.786 It would be good for your business? 409 00:27:05.866 --> 00:27:13.768 Yeah, because right now, there's a lot of brands we can't sell because those big PBMs owned by the big insurance companies, right, tell those big brands... 410 00:27:13.788 --> 00:27:14.488 The mafia. 411 00:27:14.708 --> 00:27:20.310 Yeah, the mafia tells the big brands, the Lilly, the Pfizer's, etc., don't do business with cost plus drugs. 412 00:27:20.770 --> 00:27:24.411 Because think about what happens, and we saw this with high-end generics. 413 00:27:25.111 --> 00:27:29.732 Once people see that we only market at 15%, our price is going to be a whole lot less. 414 00:27:30.812 --> 00:27:38.717 And so if our price is a whole lot less and every employer gets to look and see what it truly costs because they just look at our price list and see the cost. 415 00:27:39.477 --> 00:27:40.658 all their margin goes away. 416 00:27:40.918 --> 00:27:52.086 So you have these gigantic industries where a lot of dollars going to the legislators, buying them off in industry after industry and their industry, preventing what's in the interest of citizens. 417 00:27:52.687 --> 00:28:03.354 Do you think one of my

ideas with builders is to create a... For me, what's fascinating is that throughout our 250-year history, every industry has a special interest. 418 00:28:04.575 --> 00:28:08.056 The Pharmacy Association, the Insurance Association, the this, the that. 419 00:28:08.496 --> 00:28:13.738 But guess who doesn't have a group that wakes up in the morning, goes to think at night, thinking about citizens? 420 00:28:14.158 --> 00:28:14.598 Citizens. 421 00:28:14.638 --> 00:28:17.579 We don't have a movement of citizens that look for the citizens. 422 00:28:17.619 --> 00:28:18.659 But citizens get to vote. 423 00:28:19.060 --> 00:28:20.440 We get to vote, but we don't. 424 00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:25.181 There's always, you know, the Women's Voters of America things or whatever. 425 00:28:25.221 --> 00:28:30.203 But there is no movement that says, OK, where are the conflicts between trade groups and 426 00:28:30.423 --> 00:28:34.326 politicians, third-party industry groups, and citizens. 427 00:28:34.667 --> 00:28:36.228 Let's advocate for the citizens. 428 00:28:36.248 --> 00:28:37.129 Let's put them first. 429 00:28:37.169 --> 00:28:41.092 But it's not a homogenous group, right? 430 00:28:41.152 --> 00:28:42.373 Correct. 431 00:28:42.393 --> 00:28:48.939 The problem in my model is that we need to be smarter to unite us citizens on all issues. 432 00:28:48.959 --> 00:28:50.100 So let's say that I work for you. 433 00:28:50.120 --> 00:28:53.843 But what I would tell you, and we've talked about this, most people just want to get through their day. 434 00:28:54.773 --> 00:28:56.975 They don't want to have to think about who's representing them. 435 00:28:56.995 --> 00:29:04.744 I know, but consequently, day in, day out, over 250 years, you have all these inefficiencies and they start eating up, gerrymandering. 436 00:29:04.764 --> 00:29:11.491 Yeah, but the problem is— Extremism is just getting worse and worse because we're not as citizens uniting to demand accountability from the politicians. 437 00:29:11.871 --> 00:29:15.075 For the whole 250 years, there's been some really messed up times. 438 00:29:15.954 --> 00:29:28.439 And unless the Civil War was in your front yard or backyard and comparable times you're getting drafted, whatever it may be, you just want to put food on the table, have your kids have a better life and focus on that. 439 00:29:28.879 --> 00:29:30.600 You're not thinking about gerrymandering. 440 00:29:30.620 --> 00:29:32.160 That's 100% true. 441 00:29:32.280 --> 00:29:34.341 That's where I think it's challenged to what I'm trying to do. 442 00:29:34.361 --> 00:29:34.521 Yeah. 443 00:29:34.661 --> 00:29:38.823 And I think that's where, you know, particularly the Democrats get it completely wrong. 444 00:29:39.385 --> 00:29:43.327 you know, they extrapolate what's going on to the worst possible situation. 445 00:29:43.867 --> 00:29:45.548 And the Republicans do that too, right? 446 00:29:45.928 --> 00:29:49.469 Oh, Mondami gets elected, so

we're all communists now, right? 447 00:29:49.769 --> 00:29:52.571 Oh, Trump did this, you know, democracy is over. 448 00:29:53.251 --> 00:29:57.353 And you can argue intellectually whether either of those things are true. 449 00:29:57.933 --> 00:30:07.577 But 99.99% of people in this country are more worried about the price of beef, the price of chicken, the price of gas, and how they're going to deal with that. 450 00:30:08.235 --> 00:30:17.743 And where I think almost every politician goes wrong, they don't sit down and try to come up with a solution when they can and when they have leverage. 451 00:30:18.223 --> 00:30:22.266 You know, when you talk about affordability, affordability, let's talk about affordability. 452 00:30:22.366 --> 00:30:24.488 Everybody's an issue for everybody, right? 453 00:30:25.028 --> 00:30:26.029 Sure, okay. 454 00:30:27.650 --> 00:30:28.731 What impacts affordability? 455 00:30:29.112 --> 00:30:30.813 Groceries, groceries are too damn high. 456 00:30:31.113 --> 00:30:31.874 Beef, okay. 457 00:30:32.154 --> 00:30:33.495 How do you get the price of beef lower? 458 00:30:33.515 --> 00:30:35.136 How do you get the price of this lower, that lower? 459 00:30:35.677 --> 00:30:36.057 Well... 460 00:30:38.808 --> 00:30:39.408 And it stops. 461 00:30:39.809 --> 00:30:42.930 I'm like, okay, let's go to the slaughterhouses. 462 00:30:42.950 --> 00:30:45.191 Let's go to the farmers that have the beef. 463 00:30:45.512 --> 00:30:50.274 Let's go to the farmers that are growing, you know, the oranges. 464 00:30:50.634 --> 00:30:56.177 You know, let's deal with the people who are actually involved with the issues that impact affordability. 465 00:30:56.538 --> 00:31:08.284 And let's bring them in to Dallas, Texas and sit down with a bunch of citizens and just say, okay, explain to them, explain to everybody why beef is so expensive. 466 00:31:08.864 --> 00:31:10.805 And is there a path for us to fix it? 467 00:31:11.285 --> 00:31:19.170 Or is there a better alternative to beef, fried chicken, or whatever it may be, that puts food on people's tables at a price that's affordable? 468 00:31:19.710 --> 00:31:21.471 Nobody focuses on the solution. 469 00:31:22.111 --> 00:31:23.852 And it's the same with health care. 470 00:31:24.113 --> 00:31:30.616 Every survey that comes out now, what's the biggest challenge to affordability in your household, to your budget? 471 00:31:31.116 --> 00:31:31.477 Health care. 472 00:31:32.037 --> 00:31:33.158 40 plus percent of people. 473 00:31:33.798 --> 00:31:35.639 So the Democrats say Medicare for all. 474 00:31:36.550 --> 00:31:38.473 And I'm like, I'm all for universal coverage. 475 00:31:38.814 --> 00:31:43.982 And then they'll say, well, 30, 70, every Western country has universal healthcare. 476 00:31:44.462 --> 00:31:45.404 Well, how did they get there? 477 00:31:46.365 --> 00:31:47.647 What do they do to get there? 478 00:31:48.536 --> 00:31:57.103 And you read the legislation and it says, first of all, everything is done at the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 479 00:31:57.784 --> 00:31:59.205 How would that be working out right now? 480 00:31:59.585 --> 00:32:04.610 If you don't agree with whoever the secretary is, it's gonna turn into a disaster, right? 481 00:32:04.870 --> 00:32:14.678 Number two, they talked about Medicare for All and all this is in the legislation from Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Jayapal. 482 00:32:15.018 --> 00:32:16.780 It's all gonna be done basically in two years. 483 00:32:18.445 --> 00:32:23.966 I'm like, how are you going to convert Mayo Clinic to take only Medicare rates? 484 00:32:24.327 --> 00:32:35.409 How are you going to take Cleveland Clinic, Senior Sinai, you know, pick any high-end hospital that spent billions of dollars on equipment to do the shit no other country can do and get them just to take Medicare rates? 485 00:32:35.469 --> 00:32:37.270 How is that going to work and they're going to stay in business? 486 00:32:37.570 --> 00:32:38.630 Have you talked to any of them? 487 00:32:39.350 --> 00:32:39.510 No. 488 00:32:39.911 --> 00:32:41.551 Do you have a plan to get from here to there? 489 00:32:41.571 --> 00:32:41.631 No. 490 00:32:42.493 --> 00:32:43.154 No. 491 00:32:43.394 --> 00:32:48.199 But we have this model that says we're going to save $3 trillion. 492 00:32:48.999 --> 00:32:51.822 Have you done any behavioral analytics as part of your model? 493 00:32:52.142 --> 00:33:02.693 Meaning that if you cut the price that they're getting paid from A to half of A, how's their behavior going to change? 494 00:33:02.933 --> 00:33:04.574 Have you done any of the behavioral analytics? 495 00:33:04.634 --> 00:33:04.695 No. 496 00:33:04.735 --> 00:33:04.915 No. 497 00:33:05.870 --> 00:33:10.554 So let me just separate this conversation to two pieces. 498 00:33:11.055 --> 00:33:16.600 One is the problem of capture, and the other is the Mark Cuban factor. 499 00:33:17.040 --> 00:33:28.651 So on the first one is, in my opinion, because I've seen this, I've been studying this for many years, on every issue, the special interest wakes up in the morning, goes to sleep at night, trying to advance its special interest. 500 00:33:28.671 --> 00:33:28.891 Of course. 501 00:33:29.251 --> 00:33:30.893 All of us citizens have... 502 00:33:31.553 --> 00:33:39.060 as a concentration of society, very, very important value, but it's dissipated and we're worrying about just making ends meet so we don't unite. 503 00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:40.541 We did a rough study. 504 00:33:40.881 --> 00:33:49.950 About 30% of our economy and income is captured by the special interest and all of this PVF, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. 505 00:33:50.290 --> 00:33:57.937 We would, all of us, be richer, 30% plus, if we could unite to make sure that special interests don't hold us captured. 506 00:33:57.957 --> 00:33:58.177 Right. 507 00:33:58.337 --> 00:34:00.958 So in my opinion, ultimately, we

need to create our citizens. 508 00:34:00.978 --> 00:34:02.779 Yeah, but you're not going to get them just to go away. 509 00:34:03.399 --> 00:34:05.380 They're not going to say, well, Daniel's got the builders. 510 00:34:05.820 --> 00:34:07.681 And so we're shit out of luck. 511 00:34:08.202 --> 00:34:09.822 Would you mean the special interest? 512 00:34:10.042 --> 00:34:10.282 Yeah. 513 00:34:10.362 --> 00:34:12.243 I think we'll just raise one success issue. 514 00:34:12.263 --> 00:34:13.684 Go one, build a win. 515 00:34:14.064 --> 00:34:22.028 No, but the reason I like your builders movement, right, is because people who build things are the ones who break the incumbents. 516 00:34:22.770 --> 00:34:24.130 right, just like cost plus drugs. 517 00:34:24.911 --> 00:34:28.031 All these big pharmacy benefit managers are trying to copy us now. 518 00:34:28.411 --> 00:34:30.872 But like Bezos said, their margin is my opportunity. 519 00:34:31.272 --> 00:34:33.833 They can't do it on a cost benefit analysis. 520 00:34:34.273 --> 00:34:39.094 And so now because they're all vertically integrated, they just move it to different subsidiaries. 521 00:34:39.694 --> 00:34:49.456 And so going down to the local level and saying, okay, how do we make it more affordable for, 522 00:34:53.080 --> 00:35:00.224 Kansas or in Pennsylvania, you know, in Boswell, Pennsylvania, how do we turn around the economy there just in Boswell? 523 00:35:01.064 --> 00:35:02.845 Not worried about special interest groups, right? 524 00:35:03.145 --> 00:35:06.787 But just in Boswell, how do we make things more affordable for people in Boswell? 525 00:35:07.167 --> 00:35:10.549 Could be the hospital that's there or just a clinic instead of a hospital. 526 00:35:11.050 --> 00:35:14.791 It could be, you know, how do we bring, how do we help the farmers? 527 00:35:15.152 --> 00:35:16.252 You know, what should they plant? 528 00:35:16.492 --> 00:35:18.974 Should we, you know, if they're only making soybeans and 529 00:35:21.735 --> 00:35:26.117 That ain't feeding nobody in Boswell, Pennsylvania or Dallas, Texas. 530 00:35:26.557 --> 00:35:32.940 What is it that we can do to support them so that they can make things that push them, make things more affordable? 531 00:35:32.980 --> 00:35:36.421 Coming up with solutions that start small and grow. 532 00:35:36.902 --> 00:35:44.665 You have an incredible brand recognition, great processing power, incredible work ethic, and you really care. 533 00:35:44.705 --> 00:35:47.066 You authentically care and you're very solutions-oriented. 534 00:35:48.783 --> 00:35:49.503 What would it take? 535 00:35:49.523 --> 00:35:50.804 Let's make some news today. 536 00:35:51.364 --> 00:35:52.184 What would it take? 537 00:35:52.725 --> 00:35:53.425 What would it take? 538 00:35:53.585 --> 00:35:58.007 Under which circumstances would you say, okay, I'm throwing in the ring, the hat in the ring, and I'll run for president? 539 00:35:58.387 --> 00:35:59.467 You

have to convince my family. 540 00:35:59.507 --> 00:36:00.608 They're all out. 541 00:36:01.628 --> 00:36:02.869 None of them want me to do it. 542 00:36:02.949 --> 00:36:05.410 And honestly, I don't want to be president. 543 00:36:05.810 --> 00:36:06.650 That's not my plan. 544 00:36:06.690 --> 00:36:10.331 Because we want somebody that's doing it to benefit the nation. 545 00:36:10.532 --> 00:36:14.013 You know, healthcare, you know, when it's all said and done, if I can fix this shit— 546 00:36:15.123 --> 00:36:16.283 then the whole country benefits. 547 00:36:16.443 --> 00:36:18.524 So it would take convincing your family. 548 00:36:18.724 --> 00:36:27.546 Yeah, but put aside, I don't know if I could change healthcare as easily as president as I can right now because I got to kiss babies. 549 00:36:27.906 --> 00:36:29.246 I got to show up to events. 550 00:36:29.626 --> 00:36:30.947 I got to worry about Iran. 551 00:36:31.047 --> 00:36:32.427 I got to worry about all this other stuff. 552 00:36:32.787 --> 00:36:33.767 Now I can be focused. 553 00:36:34.447 --> 00:36:41.009 And by changing healthcare, and we've already had a big impact on what I have more, right? 554 00:36:42.099 --> 00:36:43.461 then that helps everybody. 555 00:36:43.601 --> 00:36:49.467 Is there a circumstance where shit would get so bad in our country that you and your family says, all right, we need to get this done? 556 00:36:49.487 --> 00:36:53.631 I mean, you can always hypothesize about something, right? 557 00:36:53.732 --> 00:36:55.073 But it'd have to be really bad. 558 00:36:55.333 --> 00:36:59.318 Running might be fun just because of the competitive side of me, but I wouldn't want to be president. 559 00:36:59.398 --> 00:37:03.862 The other thing that you and I had a conversation along these lines one or two years ago 560 00:37:04.739 --> 00:37:10.405 And what struck me was how ahead you were in terms of social media savviness and awareness. 561 00:37:10.425 --> 00:37:12.147 And you were like, Daniel, you're doing it all wrong. 562 00:37:12.427 --> 00:37:16.131 How do you focus your time to stay aware culturally? 563 00:37:16.151 --> 00:37:16.631 What do you do? 564 00:37:17.212 --> 00:37:18.913 I go on social media, right? 565 00:37:19.174 --> 00:37:21.816 And I'll pay attention to what I see. 566 00:37:22.217 --> 00:37:23.458 I read a lot. 567 00:37:24.059 --> 00:37:28.022 You know, it's not hard just to pay attention, you know, and I'm, 568 00:37:28.823 --> 00:37:35.122 if you go on Instagram, if you go on TikTok, if you go on YouTube, you know, once you see certain things happening, 569 00:37:35.944 --> 00:37:38.886 You can tell what the feed thinks about you, right? 570 00:37:39.387 --> 00:37:41.008 And then you can even set up other accounts. 571 00:37:41.028 --> 00:37:42.229 What does that mean, what the feed thinks about you? 572 00:37:42.389 --> 00:37:44.931 I mean, you get more of what you pursue in social media. 573 00:37:45.091 --> 00:37:46.472 It just gives you more of what you're interested in. 574 00:37:46.492 --> 00:37:47.052 Doesn't that terrify you? 575 00:37:47.392 --> 00:37:50.014 Yes, that's why I told you before that that's more important. 576 00:37:50.595 --> 00:37:53.857 Whoever controls the algorithm controls the citizen, controls the voter. 577 00:37:54.157 --> 00:38:01.202 That terrifies me because every time I get fed what I want to hear, I'm like, holy shit, whoever's the other side is getting the precise opposite. 578 00:38:01.242 --> 00:38:01.823 No, exactly. 579 00:38:01.843 --> 00:38:02.003 Exactly. 580 00:38:02.343 --> 00:38:03.825 And you have to recognize that. 581 00:38:04.185 --> 00:38:06.849 And you have to be able to counter that. 582 00:38:07.229 --> 00:38:09.391 That's why people talk about flooding the zone. 583 00:38:09.632 --> 00:38:11.153 That's why Trump is so good at what he does. 584 00:38:11.394 --> 00:38:13.656 That's why Mondami is great at what he does. 585 00:38:14.017 --> 00:38:15.178 Mondami, it doesn't matter. 586 00:38:15.198 --> 00:38:18.542 I said this on Twitter and a bunch of his fans got mad at me. 587 00:38:18.902 --> 00:38:21.665 I'm like, he knows social media cold. 588 00:38:22.266 --> 00:38:25.808 He knows how to drive people to like him on social media. 589 00:38:26.248 --> 00:38:37.694 It doesn't matter whether his policies work or not because people are still going to vote for him because they see it all positive reinforcement of Mondami on their social media feeds. 590 00:38:37.774 --> 00:38:43.858 If I believe that Mondami's policies are dangerous, can I defeat him or no? 591 00:38:43.878 --> 00:38:43.958 No. 592 00:38:44.058 --> 00:38:44.278 No. 593 00:38:45.222 --> 00:38:51.766 No, you're not going to beat him by saying his policies are dangerous any more than Harris. 594 00:38:51.946 --> 00:38:52.666 Defeating Trump. 595 00:38:52.987 --> 00:38:54.367 Yeah, Harris beat Trump. 596 00:38:54.888 --> 00:38:57.529 You know, Donald Trump was brilliant when it came to social media. 597 00:38:57.789 --> 00:38:58.850 So what are you saying? 598 00:38:58.870 --> 00:39:00.631 They're eating cats and dogs. 599 00:39:00.651 --> 00:39:03.092 You want to help builders get elected. 600 00:39:03.132 --> 00:39:05.554 You have to be great at social media. 601 00:39:06.074 --> 00:39:08.095 You have to be able to connect to people. 602 00:39:08.456 --> 00:39:10.377 You have to be able to sit and talk to them. 603 00:39:10.397 --> 00:39:16.480 But when you say you, honestly, you need the right candidates because no matter what, if you support people that don't have what it takes. 604 00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:18.861 No, but have what it takes is social media now. 605 00:39:19.042 --> 00:39:19.302 Yeah. 606 00:39:19.622 --> 00:39:19.842 Right. 607 00:39:19.882 --> 00:39:23.084 So if I talk to, look at James Tallarico. 608 00:39:24.252 --> 00:39:27.698 schoolteacher, he knows the Bible inside and out. 609 00:39:28.359 --> 00:39:36.354 And he was able to

use his knowledge of scripture to get involved with social media so that 610 00:39:37.160 --> 00:39:43.788 People who truly understood it knew that he was a good guy, and people who were abusing it, he went head-to-head with. 611 00:39:43.828 --> 00:39:52.238 But to your point about James Tallarico, I notice that the people on the red are only being fed stuff about how evil he is. 612 00:39:52.258 --> 00:39:54.681 That's why it's a social media battle. 613 00:39:54.861 --> 00:39:55.903 It's almost like you just... 614 00:39:56.892 --> 00:39:57.873 preaching to the choir. 615 00:39:57.913 --> 00:39:58.413 I don't know that. 616 00:39:58.453 --> 00:39:59.614 No, that's the whole point, Daniel. 617 00:39:59.754 --> 00:40:12.824 That's what algorithms do in social media because the economic incentive for Facebook, et cetera, is to just get more engagement because then they put in more ads and they make a whole lot more money. 618 00:40:12.844 --> 00:40:15.166 The more scandal and partisan and extreme, the more that they're going to make. 619 00:40:15.206 --> 00:40:15.947 Exactly right. 620 00:40:16.187 --> 00:40:19.450 So the question becomes, how do you connect with real people? 621 00:40:20.182 --> 00:40:20.962 How do you connect? 622 00:40:21.763 --> 00:40:25.105 And somebody who can connect is going to be successful. 623 00:40:25.385 --> 00:40:27.006 So what steps do you have to take? 624 00:40:27.766 --> 00:40:32.169 Too many politicians want to give a speech, a stump speech, and talk about this and that. 625 00:40:32.629 --> 00:40:34.950 No, that's dumb, right? 626 00:40:35.310 --> 00:40:40.253 You go and you sit at their house, and you talk to them, and you let them explain. 627 00:40:40.773 --> 00:40:44.875 And then you come up with something that you can do, and you go there and you do it, right? 628 00:40:45.156 --> 00:40:47.797 You go in and you bring in all the farmers, right? 629 00:40:48.471 --> 00:41:02.743 and said, okay, what if I can get subsidies to switch you from soybeans, you know, if the ground supports it, right, to something that we can sell economically here in your state or in the country that makes things more affordable for people. 630 00:41:03.384 --> 00:41:07.287 That's going to get people's attention because it impacts their here and now. 631 00:41:07.768 --> 00:41:14.354 Besides Cost Plus, do you have another area where you dedicate a lot of time besides checking all those emails and staying aware of the universe? 632 00:41:14.914 --> 00:41:16.215 So you see what you're going to say about Claimable? 633 00:41:16.315 --> 00:41:33.546 Yeah, Claimable, a guy named Morris, I connected with him, and he's got a company that when you get denied care, which happens all too often, they've got the technology and the knowledge as doctors to go to the insurance company and fuck them up, right? 634 00:41:33.586 --> 00:41:34.627 And always. 635 00:41:35.187 --> 00:41:37.509 And I'm able to help them because... 636 00:41:38.269 -->

00:41:42.958 60% of employees that get their healthcare through their company work for self-insured companies. 637 00:41:43.580 --> 00:41:48.930 And so if there's an, like we had a lady that had a heart transplant and she had a heart transplant 638 00:41:49.887 --> 00:41:57.709 And she switched insurance companies, and the new insurance company wouldn't give her her anti-rejection medication. 639 00:41:58.489 --> 00:42:01.850 So fortunately, she saw that it was on cost plus drugs. 640 00:42:02.270 --> 00:42:06.652 And instead of being thousands of dollars she thought she was going to have to pay, it was only a couple hundred dollars. 641 00:42:07.172 --> 00:42:15.614 But I found out who the, or claimable found out who the employer was, found out the CEO, found a connection, and said, Okay. 642 00:42:15.934 --> 00:42:32.378 For this insurance company that you hired, right, that you're responsible for choosing, it's your company, and for all your employees and their families, they chose not to spend $200 a month for anti-heart rejection medications. 643 00:42:33.399 --> 00:42:34.359 Would you please do it? 644 00:42:35.059 --> 00:42:36.940 Or we can have a conversation with the Wall Street Journal. 645 00:42:37.660 --> 00:42:37.900 You know? 646 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:38.020 Yeah. 647 00:42:38.965 --> 00:42:39.245 Yes. 648 00:42:39.525 --> 00:42:41.066 I mean, name and shame all day long. 649 00:42:41.086 --> 00:42:42.526 I had another one. 650 00:42:43.007 --> 00:42:44.227 That's a business model? 651 00:42:44.307 --> 00:42:44.507 Yeah. 652 00:42:44.767 --> 00:42:45.568 What is the business model? 653 00:42:45.588 --> 00:42:51.610 The business is when an insurance company denies a claim. 654 00:42:52.391 --> 00:42:57.873 And usually it's not an issue with drugs as much as it is with medical procedures. 655 00:42:58.193 --> 00:43:03.695 We had this kid whose parent worked for a company that I won't name because they fixed it. 656 00:43:04.135 --> 00:43:07.837 And they needed this intravenous stuff that effectively would save his leg. 657 00:43:08.317 --> 00:43:12.661 And if they stopped doing it and it was $18,000 a month, he was going to lose his leg. 658 00:43:13.102 --> 00:43:17.366 And his brother, who's younger, has the same genetic disease, was facing the same prognosis. 659 00:43:17.946 --> 00:43:22.711 And so through a connection, got to the CEO and said, come on, it's $18,000. 660 00:43:22.751 --> 00:43:24.312 You're a big company. 661 00:43:24.772 --> 00:43:28.296 I know you didn't know about us because CEOs don't know this stuff, right? 662 00:43:28.636 --> 00:43:30.238 The insurance company isn't telling them. 663 00:43:30.898 --> 00:43:33.579 And so they said, of course, we're going to pay for it. 664 00:43:33.619 --> 00:43:34.420 And they paid for it. 665 00:43:34.720 --> 00:43:36.440 And I didn't have to name them and shame them. 666 00:43:36.901 --> 00:43:39.161 And so- But how do they make money? 667 00:43:39.782 --> 00:43:48.745 So where the provider or the pharmaceutical company is now getting paid, right? 668 00:43:48.905 --> 00:43:52.387 Because we got them to get paid, then we can make a percentage of that. 669 00:43:52.547 --> 00:43:52.827 Got it. 670 00:43:53.027 --> 00:43:56.669 I really like how you very often think outside the box and how you ask why. 671 00:43:56.689 --> 00:44:00.030 Do you have any tips for anybody on how to do so more? 672 00:44:00.656 --> 00:44:01.236 Use AI. 673 00:44:01.697 --> 00:44:03.618 Don't be afraid to talk to Claude. 674 00:44:03.638 --> 00:44:04.218 I use Claude. 675 00:44:04.799 --> 00:44:06.260 I chat GPT, Gemini. 676 00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:08.942 I got him in my car so I can have a conversation. 677 00:44:09.022 --> 00:44:14.885 So I was like, the other day, I wanted to check my whole car to Medicare for all. 678 00:44:15.746 --> 00:44:21.730 And I was like, tell me what's happening in Canada, the origination of it. 679 00:44:21.810 --> 00:44:26.013 And as I'm driving, it's telling me and I'm asking it questions. 680 00:44:26.673 --> 00:44:34.055 And it takes a lot to get over the hesitancy of talking to your AI large language model. 681 00:44:34.475 --> 00:44:35.556 I think that's one way. 682 00:44:35.936 --> 00:44:39.917 I use it all the time to ask you questions about various things. 683 00:44:40.257 --> 00:44:40.817 To learn. 684 00:44:41.017 --> 00:44:43.838 To learn and not presuming that it's always right. 685 00:44:44.358 --> 00:44:45.799 It's like talking to a professor. 686 00:44:46.459 --> 00:44:51.781 they're going to be wrong 30% of the time, you know, or to a consultant, they're going to be wrong 50% of the time. 687 00:44:52.461 --> 00:44:54.081 And so it's a good start. 688 00:44:54.641 --> 00:45:02.264 I always ask for sources and then I check the sources, which is how I save up, how I learn so much more quickly than I did before. 689 00:45:02.304 --> 00:45:04.865 Because think about what we did two, three years ago. 690 00:45:05.285 --> 00:45:05.965 You go to Google, 691 00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:09.564 You try to formulate a search query. 692 00:45:10.285 --> 00:45:12.569 It comes back with 10, 15 blue checks. 693 00:45:13.430 --> 00:45:18.498 You're trying to go through them and have to click on them and just to see if they're valid or not. 694 00:45:18.838 --> 00:45:20.200 Half of them are misinformation. 695 00:45:20.240 --> 00:45:21.943 Half of them are trying to sell you something. 696 00:45:23.135 --> 00:45:28.461 One of the beauties of large language models, even though they hallucinate and get things wrong, is you can ask for the source. 697 00:45:29.281 --> 00:45:32.284 And you can check the source to make sure it's right. 698 00:45:32.545 --> 00:45:42.675 Beyond the AI, which I get it, I also feel like you go to podcasts and news sources that you're not necessarily in agreement with because you're authentic. 699 00:45:42.735 --> 00:45:44.257 Oh, no, I love when people disagree with me. 700

00:45:44.577 --> 00:45:46.540 How do you develop the thick skin? 701 00:45:46.560 --> 00:45:56.015 Because I saw when you were fighting with Elon and others, and you were just saying what you wanted to say and taking the hits. 702 00:45:56.296 --> 00:45:57.537 That was during the... 703 00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:00.501 the presidential campaign. 704 00:46:01.162 --> 00:46:03.303 And so there was a lot at stake. 705 00:46:03.323 --> 00:46:08.187 And my rule was and is, I only punch up. 706 00:46:08.847 --> 00:46:14.731 I don't have a problem going after Elon or somebody who's in a lot of power, a Ted Cruz or whoever, right? 707 00:46:14.771 --> 00:46:15.772 I'll go back against them. 708 00:46:15.792 --> 00:46:23.138 If it's just somebody who's, you know, trying to troll me or whatever, you know, every now and then I'll make a funky comment or whatever. 709 00:46:23.438 --> 00:46:27.361 Is there something that you have in your personality to be strong against people 710 00:46:27.961 --> 00:46:28.843 Like lying about you. 711 00:46:28.863 --> 00:46:31.146 For me, what drives me is when people lie about me. 712 00:46:31.627 --> 00:46:32.428 I can't stand it. 713 00:46:32.508 --> 00:46:33.410 Oh yeah, I mean... 714 00:46:34.418 --> 00:46:35.619 No, because I'm competitive. 715 00:46:35.639 --> 00:46:36.819 You're competitive, right? 716 00:46:36.859 --> 00:46:38.060 And you want to respond on that. 717 00:46:38.120 --> 00:46:39.221 It just depends on who it is. 718 00:46:39.761 --> 00:46:45.965 Because then I just tell myself, look, on X, it'll show you the number of views, right? 719 00:46:46.025 --> 00:46:47.786 The number of times someone's seen it. 720 00:46:48.226 --> 00:46:51.508 And if someone makes up some bullshit and two people have seen it. 721 00:46:51.788 --> 00:46:52.248 You ignore it. 722 00:46:52.428 --> 00:46:53.049 You ignore it. 723 00:46:53.189 --> 00:46:54.710 And if it's significant, you'll respond. 724 00:46:54.910 --> 00:46:56.411 Significant depends on who the person is. 725 00:46:56.771 --> 00:46:57.952 If I think they're smart... 726 00:46:58.752 --> 00:47:01.035 and I will engage, then... 727 00:47:01.055 --> 00:47:02.296 So you're very strategic about it. 728 00:47:02.316 --> 00:47:03.277 I try to be strategic, yeah. 729 00:47:03.317 --> 00:47:04.799 Do you ever get emotional? 730 00:47:04.919 --> 00:47:06.781 I get mad sometimes, but that's what I said. 731 00:47:06.801 --> 00:47:10.986 I'll delete, I'll write it, feel better, hit delete. 732 00:47:11.126 --> 00:47:12.508 The last two quick things. 733 00:47:13.709 --> 00:47:15.351 First day I showed up on Shark Tank. 734 00:47:16.418 --> 00:47:17.700 You gave me a piece of advice. 735 00:47:18.420 --> 00:47:19.662 You don't remember what it is, right? 736 00:47:20.162 --> 00:47:26.149 He said, I had all these ideas for things that I wanted to share, all these ideas for business advice. 737 00:47:26.169 --> 00:47:27.311 Oh, I think I told you don't preach? 738 00:47:27.931

--> 00:47:28.893 No, you said, Daniel... 739 00:47:29.853 --> 00:47:30.773 just be in the moment. 740 00:47:30.813 --> 00:47:32.714 Just don't be looking at your notes. 741 00:47:32.734 --> 00:47:33.494 Just listen. 742 00:47:33.654 --> 00:47:36.515 And you had all those notes of things you wanted to say, right? 743 00:47:36.535 --> 00:47:37.615 Just be there. 744 00:47:37.696 --> 00:47:39.776 Just be, use your business experience to help. 745 00:47:39.796 --> 00:47:41.177 And just, just let it happen. 746 00:47:41.217 --> 00:47:42.397 Don't be preparing yourself. 747 00:47:43.057 --> 00:47:44.278 Is that advice about life? 748 00:47:44.318 --> 00:47:45.698 Is that how you approach everything? 749 00:47:45.758 --> 00:47:48.519 Or do you sometimes, sometimes you have to be prepared, right? 750 00:47:48.879 --> 00:47:52.000 Like I would write like the early years of shark tank. 751 00:47:52.040 --> 00:47:57.482 I would come in with a bunch of stupid things that I wanted to do or sayings, you know, Oh, what was it? 752 00:47:57.502 --> 00:47:57.562 Um, 753 00:47:58.182 --> 00:47:59.203 I did that this last one. 754 00:47:59.243 --> 00:48:00.144 I couldn't get one in. 755 00:48:00.404 --> 00:48:03.266 No, but they're all stupid, so it's easy to get in. 756 00:48:03.326 --> 00:48:08.671 So it was like, that's about as good as a melting snowman, I think was when I got in. 757 00:48:09.752 --> 00:48:13.075 Damon and I would crack up about this old YouTube video. 758 00:48:13.435 --> 00:48:15.657 Not my chair, not my problem. 759 00:48:16.157 --> 00:48:20.921 For a while, we would do bets between the sharks. 760 00:48:21.142 --> 00:48:26.146 Whoever could get in, shut the front door the quickest, got $100 from everybody. 761 00:48:26.466 --> 00:48:27.787 I was never invited to that blog. 762 00:48:27.807 --> 00:48:28.888 Yeah, it was early days of Shark Tank. 763 00:48:28.908 --> 00:48:29.629 It was a little bit different. 764 00:48:29.649 --> 00:48:32.492 Then we all get like, okay, we're so used to doing it. 765 00:48:33.933 --> 00:48:37.776 But yeah, I was just, because I always tried to respect the entrepreneur. 766 00:48:38.724 --> 00:48:40.224 And that's why I would try to help. 767 00:48:40.645 --> 00:48:43.385 I'm like, this person's got their whole life on the line, more often than not. 768 00:48:44.065 --> 00:48:47.867 And they're on that carpet and they had to fight off a whole lot of people just to get there. 769 00:48:48.647 --> 00:48:51.267 And I'm just going to try to help them where I can. 770 00:48:52.068 --> 00:48:56.569 The one thing that I borrowed from you this last season that we just finished recording 771 00:48:57.389 --> 00:49:00.292 Sometimes when you wanted something, you just did it. 772 00:49:00.672 --> 00:49:04.616 And I'm always like, my negotiating self is trying to get the best deal. 773 00:49:05.056 --> 00:49:08.159 And there was a really, I think it's going to be a killer business. 774 00:49:08.479 --> 00:49:09.460 And

I did a Mark Cuban. 775 00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:11.142 I was like, okay, what's the number you want? 776 00:49:11.442 --> 00:49:11.842 That's it. 777 00:49:12.123 --> 00:49:14.284 And I jumped and everybody was just watching. 778 00:49:14.325 --> 00:49:15.666 I'm like, there you go. 779 00:49:15.866 --> 00:49:17.628 Yeah, because if it's like. 780 00:49:18.288 --> 00:49:21.392 $250,000 for 10% versus 15%. 781 00:49:21.792 --> 00:49:24.175 If it's a good deal, you're going to make a lot of money. 782 00:49:24.856 --> 00:49:27.439 But my problem was I would just get bored. 783 00:49:28.741 --> 00:49:34.187 Like listen to Kevin talk about royalties and listen to Lori, who I love. 784 00:49:34.668 --> 00:49:36.130 You know, well, tell me about yourself. 785 00:49:37.158 --> 00:49:49.488 You know, Rashawn and I were talking about, I had him on for Builder Break, and he and I were saying how we've not earned the right to sit like Mark Cuban, because towards the end of the day, you're filming 10 episodes sometimes. 786 00:49:49.508 --> 00:50:00.276 You're like starting at 7 a.m. in the morning, 6 a.m. you wake up, and it's 8 p.m., and you're like sometimes very comfortable like this, and Rashawn and I are still at this stage where we're behaving really. 787 00:50:00.296 --> 00:50:06.080 That's because my back hurt or something hurt more than anything else, or doing emails in between the minute I'm done with them. 788 00:50:08.141 --> 00:50:27.569 last last thing I learned about you that I didn't realize that you and I have in common I also graduated a year early and took night school courses and went to college as a 17 year old am I right that that happened in your story no I mean I just dropped out 789 00:50:28.764 --> 00:50:29.404 What? 790 00:50:29.444 --> 00:50:38.710 Yeah, I started taking night classes my junior year of high school and just never went back and then transferred my credits from Pitt back to high school to graduate. 791 00:50:39.771 --> 00:50:40.711 How did that happen? 792 00:50:41.051 --> 00:50:42.312 Just didn't go back to high school. 793 00:50:42.572 --> 00:50:43.273 You were bored? 794 00:50:43.293 --> 00:50:47.415 Yeah, I just, they wouldn't let me take a business class my junior year. 795 00:50:48.216 --> 00:50:51.057 And I was like, but I want to learn business and da-da-da-da. 796 00:50:51.157 --> 00:50:53.319 And they're like, well, you're not a senior yet. 797 00:50:53.859 --> 00:50:56.861 And so, and I had done well in these classes at night 798 00:50:57.641 --> 00:50:58.801 You know, you talk about challenge. 799 00:50:58.821 --> 00:50:59.541 What did your parents say? 800 00:51:00.622 --> 00:51:01.602 They didn't really understand. 801 00:51:01.742 --> 00:51:04.022 You know, it was just like, okay, I did this. 802 00:51:04.422 --> 00:51:05.583 I'm going to college early. 803 00:51:05.603 --> 00:51:07.743 And they're like, fine, you're going to college early. 804 00:51:08.983 --> 00:51:10.744 So they were happy because they had never gone to college. 805 00:51:11.084 --> 00:51:13.004 So you challenged this stupid system. 806 00:51:13.204 --> 00:51:13.784 Oh, yeah. 807 00:51:13.904 --> 00:51:17.725 But it was even stupider because I took Russian in high school. 808 00:51:18.145 --> 00:51:22.606 And I was like, okay, I want to see if I could handle a grad class. 809 00:51:24.012 --> 00:51:24.432 at Pitt. 810 00:51:25.072 --> 00:51:26.993 And I couldn't, it was way over my head. 811 00:51:27.193 --> 00:51:28.733 And so, but they, I had snuck in. 812 00:51:29.093 --> 00:51:30.494 So I get to Indiana, right. 813 00:51:31.114 --> 00:51:31.974 And I transferred there. 814 00:51:32.714 --> 00:51:36.775 And my freshman year, this was way back when you had to stand in line to register for a class. 815 00:51:37.115 --> 00:51:37.815 It wasn't online. 816 00:51:38.475 --> 00:51:41.436 And I'm having, looking to register for a business class. 817 00:51:41.956 --> 00:51:45.697 And then over here, the line for this, um, statistics class, um, 818 00:51:46.397 --> 00:51:48.719 K-501 was like three people. 819 00:51:49.159 --> 00:51:51.060 I'm like, I'm gonna go stand in that line and register. 820 00:51:51.320 --> 00:51:52.581 Well, it was the MBA class. 821 00:51:52.921 --> 00:51:58.285 And I'm like, okay, well, if I can do well in this MBA class, then I'm gonna kill college, right? 822 00:51:58.305 --> 00:51:59.005 I'm gonna do great. 823 00:51:59.405 --> 00:52:01.747 So I took it and got an A. 824 00:52:02.287 --> 00:52:03.808 And that's not even the best part of the story. 825 00:52:04.168 --> 00:52:10.953 The best part of the story, the professor was a guy named Wayne Winston, who I loved and he always used sports examples to teach statistics. 826 00:52:12.053 --> 00:52:14.155 Fast forward 20 years later, give or take, 827 00:52:14.909 --> 00:52:15.870 I just bought the Mavs. 828 00:52:15.990 --> 00:52:19.411 I met a Mavs versus Indiana and Indianapolis. 829 00:52:20.052 --> 00:52:25.794 And I just got done watching my old stats prof win on Jeopardy. 830 00:52:26.675 --> 00:52:29.696 And all of a sudden I hear this guy, Mark, Mark, Mark out of the stands. 831 00:52:30.037 --> 00:52:32.518 And I never would have remembered him from way back when. 832 00:52:32.818 --> 00:52:33.899 And it was Wayne Winston. 833 00:52:33.939 --> 00:52:36.800 And I only recognized him because he had just won and killed it on Jeopardy. 834 00:52:37.140 --> 00:52:42.543 And we started talking about stats and he literally became the first analytics guy for an NBA team because 835 00:52:42.863 --> 00:52:48.667 I snuck in to an MBA statistics class when I was 18 in Indiana. 836 00:52:48.728 --> 00:52:49.708 That's an amazing story. 837 00:52:49.728 --> 00:52:50.409 Yeah, it's great. 838 00:52:50.509 --> 00:52:52.210 And it gets better because... And he helped. 839 00:52:52.731 --> 00:52:52.991 Right. 840 00:52:53.051 --> 00:52:57.314 Well, I took that class and I got an A, so they all assumed I was

in the MBA program. 841 00:52:57.614 --> 00:52:59.716 So I just started taking MBA classes and... 842 00:53:00.136 --> 00:53:06.042 You know, finance and other business classes, entrepreneurship class, which I loved. 843 00:53:06.903 --> 00:53:08.305 But it was all MBA level. 844 00:53:08.445 --> 00:53:10.867 And I was literally doing tutoring for some people. 845 00:53:11.208 --> 00:53:12.809 And I was 18, 19 years old. 846 00:53:12.829 --> 00:53:18.715 So by the time I was finished with my sophomore year, I had almost a year and a half of my MBA done. 847 00:53:19.136 --> 00:53:20.958 And then I come back from my junior year. 848 00:53:22.242 --> 00:53:28.846 And the head of the MBA program saw me on campus, walked up to me and just started pounding me in the chest. 849 00:53:29.266 --> 00:53:32.587 I don't know how you did it, but you were going back to undergrad. 850 00:53:32.607 --> 00:53:33.868 You were not in the MBA program. 851 00:53:33.908 --> 00:53:34.348 Oh, upset. 852 00:53:34.408 --> 00:53:34.869 Found you upset. 853 00:53:34.889 --> 00:53:38.851 Yeah, because I'd snuck in and I was just paying regular tuition, right? 854 00:53:39.151 --> 00:53:39.851 And I'd snuck in. 855 00:53:39.871 --> 00:53:40.712 And he was upset. 856 00:53:40.852 --> 00:53:44.694 Yeah, because I'd gotten away with it and I was doing well because think about it. 857 00:53:44.714 --> 00:53:49.096 Some 18, 19-year-old kid that, you know, just snuck in and was just killing it. 858 00:53:49.336 --> 00:53:50.977 But why was he upset about it? 859 00:53:51.117 --> 00:53:53.518 because I wasn't in the MBA program. 860 00:53:53.658 --> 00:53:56.900 But I think also because you were not following the stupid system rules. 861 00:53:56.920 --> 00:53:57.700 Well, of course, right? 862 00:53:58.020 --> 00:54:00.821 I didn't apply, I didn't get in. 863 00:54:00.901 --> 00:54:05.243 But that revel in you is the fundamental essence of how you've built so much. 864 00:54:05.263 --> 00:54:06.864 Yes, everything I've done, everything I've done. 865 00:54:07.084 --> 00:54:11.646 I mean, by the time I was a senior, I wasn't even 21 and I was opening up a bar on campus. 866 00:54:12.086 --> 00:54:17.989 And then we got shut down because we had a lot of underage drinkers because they were my friends. 867 00:54:19.110 --> 00:54:20.911 Which is also a great thing that happened to me. 868 00:54:21.332 --> 00:54:26.176 It was fortunate because who knows, I'd still be working in Bloomington, Indiana. 869 00:54:26.456 --> 00:54:26.737 It's crazy. 870 00:54:26.757 --> 00:54:27.738 If your bar had worked out. 871 00:54:27.758 --> 00:54:28.218 Right, right. 872 00:54:28.238 --> 00:54:35.765 Because when I go back there, I'll see people working at other bars that used to work for me when I was a junior and senior in college, which is just crazy. 873 00:54:35.785 --> 00:54:36.826 Thank God you got shut down. 874 00:54:37.026 --> 00:54:38.788 Exactly, exactly. 875 00:54:38.988 --> 00:54:39.649

Motley's Pub. 876 00:54:40.049 --> 00:54:42.772 All right, we're now gonna move to the Mexican Inquisition. 877 00:54:46.629 --> 00:54:53.999 I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and you need to choose between what I would think are tough choices and you do make a choice. 878 00:54:54.660 --> 00:54:59.466 An unsung hero who helped you get here, Todd Wagner or Martine Woodall? 879 00:54:59.787 --> 00:55:00.347 Probably Todd. 880 00:55:01.040 --> 00:55:04.281 Yeah, Todd, Martin, I got, Martin was smart. 881 00:55:05.022 --> 00:55:10.824 Both of them, I always partner well with people who are very anal perfectionists, because I'm not either. 882 00:55:11.485 --> 00:55:13.586 And Martin helped me get started. 883 00:55:14.606 --> 00:55:16.007 But Todd really took it. 884 00:55:16.047 --> 00:55:19.088 Martin was, he was my partner at Micro Solutions. 885 00:55:19.148 --> 00:55:20.089 And then Todd was at? 886 00:55:20.229 --> 00:55:20.889 At Broadcast. 887 00:55:21.889 --> 00:55:26.591 And Todd was the one who came and I had lunch with that originated the whole broadcast. 888 00:55:26.631 --> 00:55:26.791 I did. 889 00:55:26.811 --> 00:55:31.512 Broadcast, we didn't get to talk about it, but it's a company that you sold for $5.7 billion. 890 00:55:31.632 --> 00:55:32.432 Yeah, in stock. 891 00:55:32.452 --> 00:55:33.073 Yeah. 892 00:55:33.433 --> 00:55:36.274 It was the first streaming company, so it was a big accomplishment for us. 893 00:55:36.974 --> 00:55:41.655 Who would be a more interesting dinner guest, Michael Lewis or Michael Jordan? 894 00:55:42.295 --> 00:55:42.876 Michael Lewis. 895 00:55:43.516 --> 00:55:46.857 Michael Jordan's fun, and I've had a lot of fun times with Michael. 896 00:55:46.877 --> 00:55:47.217 Yeah. 897 00:55:47.658 --> 00:55:52.185 But, you know, we both know basketball, probably tired of talking about basketball. 898 00:55:52.446 --> 00:55:55.530 What historical figure would be more fascinating to have lunch with? 899 00:55:56.372 --> 00:55:58.735 Sam Walton or Bill Beck? 900 00:55:58.795 --> 00:55:59.537 Yeah, Bill Beck. 901 00:55:59.897 --> 00:56:01.179 I can tell you wrote these questions. 902 00:56:03.495 --> 00:56:07.078 He owned the Chicago White Sox back in the 30s, I think it was. 903 00:56:08.018 --> 00:56:16.745 And his idea of trying to win games was to bring in a midget, Eddie Goodell, I think his name was, that was like three foot six. 904 00:56:17.786 --> 00:56:19.967 And the strike zone was like that big. 905 00:56:20.428 --> 00:56:23.250 And so it was smart and it was fun. 906 00:56:23.350 --> 00:56:29.955 And actually, when I first bought the Mavs, people compared me to Bill Veck simply because he would try anything and so would I. 907 00:56:30.535 --> 00:56:35.896 What's one thing that broke you and eventually helped build you into a stronger leader? 908 00:56:36.496 --> 00:56:43.938 Getting fired from your business software or being boxed out of the Mavericks basketball operations after the sale? 909 00:56:44.478 --> 00:56:45.479 Probably the second one. 910 00:56:45.659 --> 00:56:47.139 Yeah, I learned some hard lessons. 911 00:56:47.639 --> 00:56:51.160 You know, I'm a really trusting partner. 912 00:56:51.700 --> 00:56:53.941 If I shake your hand, I mean it. 913 00:56:54.961 --> 00:56:58.422 So, yeah, that was a first for me. 914 00:56:59.478 --> 00:57:03.841 What shaped you more, sellingbroadcast.com or 15 seasons on Shark Tank? 915 00:57:04.542 --> 00:57:05.923 Oh, sellingbroadcast.com. 916 00:57:06.023 --> 00:57:06.563 Really? 917 00:57:06.723 --> 00:57:08.725 You wouldn't know who I was if that never happened to me. 918 00:57:08.825 --> 00:57:10.046 No, what shaped you more? 919 00:57:10.086 --> 00:57:12.808 No, sellingbroadcast, yeah, because that changed my life more than anything. 920 00:57:13.582 --> 00:57:20.967 And, you know, you know, from Selling Kind, you get there's being wealthy and then there's being, oh, my God, I never imagined this. 921 00:57:21.428 --> 00:57:22.749 And that shapes you more than anything. 922 00:57:23.029 --> 00:57:28.232 What do you do to stay grounded and to make sure that that doesn't prevent you from being a builder? 923 00:57:28.373 --> 00:57:32.656 I've been broke and I liked my life, loved my life when I was broke. 924 00:57:33.336 --> 00:57:36.138 So, you know, I drove up in a Kia. 925 00:57:36.358 --> 00:57:39.019 I mean, it's just like I'm not all about the trappings. 926 00:57:39.079 --> 00:57:45.063 It's not like I'd rather eat at a 7-Eleven or just then go out to someplace fancy. 927 00:57:45.083 --> 00:57:47.664 So I'm not all that much worried about that. 928 00:57:47.704 --> 00:57:51.026 I still work out at the same gym, play basketball with the same people. 929 00:57:51.327 --> 00:57:55.329 And I got three kids in their teens and 20s who humble me by the minute, right? 930 00:57:55.969 --> 00:57:58.571 I think that's probably the number one thing I like to get kids. 931 00:57:58.991 --> 00:58:02.313 What was harder to reach, your first million or your first billion? 932 00:58:03.102 --> 00:58:09.089 First million, yeah, because I was broke sleeping on the floor. 933 00:58:10.110 --> 00:58:12.953 And I just remember thinking, oh, shit, this could go. 934 00:58:13.234 --> 00:58:17.319 I remember thinking I have $15,000 in accounts receivable. 935 00:58:17.719 --> 00:58:20.182 There is a light at the end of the tunnel. 936 00:58:20.602 --> 00:58:22.144 And then I remember... 937 00:58:23.850 --> 00:58:28.212 Before I was worth a million dollars, we had like $84,000 in the bank. 938 00:58:28.792 --> 00:58:40.457 And I got a call from the bank, Republic Bank, which was long gone, saying, you know, sir, we have somebody who went through the drive-through and cashed checks in her name. 939 00:58:41.157 --> 00:58:41.758 I'm like, what? 940 00:58:42.438 --> 00:58:47.200 And they're like, yeah, she whited out the payee and wrote her name on the check. 941 00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:48.921

I'm like, you didn't cash them, did you? 942 00:58:49.561 --> 00:58:50.562 And yes, we did, sir. 943 00:58:50.642 --> 00:58:51.302 That's what we do. 944 00:58:52.255 --> 00:58:56.677 A girl named Renee Hardy took 82 of the $84,000 we had in the bank. 945 00:58:57.317 --> 00:59:06.380 And that money that she took, she was supposed to just go to the post office and put it in, you know, put it in the, um, um, to just send them. 946 00:59:07.240 --> 00:59:09.301 And she did the whiteout thing. 947 00:59:09.581 --> 00:59:13.983 And we had to go back to all of our vendors because that was our, they were our payables. 948 00:59:14.003 --> 00:59:17.784 I had to go back to all of our vendors and work something out, you know? 949 00:59:17.804 --> 00:59:18.604 And did you find her? 950 00:59:19.104 --> 00:59:20.025 No, I've never seen her since. 951 00:59:20.045 --> 00:59:20.405 Never found her? 952 00:59:20.425 --> 00:59:20.725 Yeah. 953 00:59:20.745 --> 00:59:20.885 Yeah. 954 00:59:21.486 --> 00:59:22.292 Did you look for her? 955 00:59:22.654 --> 00:59:22.876 No. 956 00:59:23.480 --> 00:59:23.762 Really? 957 00:59:23.823 --> 00:59:24.467 There's no point. 958 00:59:25.076 --> 00:59:26.717 I had two or three like that in my life. 959 00:59:26.777 --> 00:59:27.558 Not too many, right? 960 00:59:27.658 --> 00:59:30.000 But I fought like crazy. 961 00:59:30.020 --> 00:59:32.121 I can't stand when people do that. 962 00:59:32.141 --> 00:59:38.266 We had one group steal a container, a trailer of Kind Bars. 963 00:59:38.426 --> 00:59:40.268 And the insurance was going to pay for it. 964 00:59:40.948 --> 00:59:44.571 But it's not just that you lose the product. 965 00:59:44.611 --> 00:59:45.812 You're losing the sales. 966 00:59:46.092 --> 00:59:47.073 You're losing control. 967 00:59:47.113 --> 00:59:49.535 You're losing the quality, potentially. 968 00:59:49.555 --> 00:59:52.437 The product can end up being discounted and hurting the brand. 969 00:59:53.440 --> 00:59:59.681 I called my friend, Tim Sperry, and I said, pause as the buyer, because I knew the whole trailer is like a million dollars worth of Kindvars. 970 00:59:59.701 --> 01:00:09.363 I knew it would pop up somewhere, and the minute it popped up, Tim's like, yeah, I want to buy your product, and we work with the California Highway Police, and it took me a little bit. 971 01:00:09.383 --> 01:00:10.943 We intercepted the product. 972 01:00:10.983 --> 01:00:12.344 We called the motherfuckers. 973 01:00:12.624 --> 01:00:13.944 Good for you. 974 01:00:14.024 --> 01:00:19.165 If you had to invest in today, which league would you invest in, MLB or National Hockey League? 975 01:00:19.425 --> 01:00:19.685 MLB. 976 01:00:20.548 --> 01:00:26.472 Yeah, I just think they finally figured out to put the fans first and speed up the game. 977 01:00:27.393 --> 01:00:34.899 And I think, relatively speaking, in valuations, they're a little bit more sane than even the NHL. 978 01:00:35.139 --> 01:00:38.941 What is more critical in business, lock or a hard work ethic? 979 01:00:39.582 --> 01:00:40.863 Depends on where you are. 980 01:00:41.483 --> 01:00:43.685 You know, if you want to be a billionaire, lock. 981 01:00:44.281 --> 01:00:44.921 All day, every day. 982 01:00:45.562 --> 01:00:51.726 If you want to make your first million, and even then it's hard, but effort and persistence. 983 01:00:52.006 --> 01:00:53.607 What creates more lasting change? 984 01:00:54.268 --> 01:00:56.790 Billionaire philanthropy or systemic reform? 985 01:00:57.910 --> 01:00:59.271 Probably neither, right? 986 01:00:59.291 --> 01:01:02.494 It goes back to what I said earlier, just boots on the ground. 987 01:01:02.994 --> 01:01:04.335 But design... 988 01:01:06.222 --> 01:01:08.664 action items, right? 989 01:01:08.724 --> 01:01:09.665 Actually doing something. 990 01:01:09.725 --> 01:01:11.106 That's a better way to put it. 991 01:01:11.166 --> 01:01:11.786 Doing something. 992 01:01:11.846 --> 01:01:15.729 Politicians like to talk about things and think legislation changes everything. 993 01:01:16.189 --> 01:01:18.831 But there's no service level agreement on legislation. 994 01:01:18.851 --> 01:01:27.517 Like if I were president, one of my signature legislations would be any law that's passed has to have a service level agreement. 995 01:01:27.837 --> 01:01:33.922 Meaning if you say this is what it's expected to do and the budget office says these are the numbers, 996 01:01:34.542 --> 01:01:37.205 After year one, okay, you get one mulligan. 997 01:01:37.546 --> 01:01:39.788 I still think you should run for president. 998 01:01:39.828 --> 01:01:42.731 We're going to move now to the last segment of our conversation. 999 01:01:42.871 --> 01:01:43.732 It's very quick. 1000 01:01:43.752 --> 01:01:45.254 It goes build or break. 1001 01:01:45.554 --> 01:01:45.834 Okay. 1002 01:01:45.894 --> 01:01:48.317 If you think it's good, build, if not break. 1003 01:01:48.898 --> 01:01:49.178 Ready? 1004 01:01:49.578 --> 01:01:52.141 Build or break, NBA finds. 1005 01:01:53.027 --> 01:01:53.327 Build. 1006 01:01:54.168 --> 01:01:56.330 But you were like off on the subject. 1007 01:01:56.651 --> 01:01:58.412 Still the king of getting fined, yeah. 1008 01:01:58.773 --> 01:01:59.453 So why build? 1009 01:02:00.594 --> 01:02:13.927 Because it means that you're saying something the NBA doesn't like or doesn't agree with or is concerned about, and you're only going to say it if there's a real good reason and you think, or at least for me, and think it could have an impact. 1010 01:02:13.947 --> 01:02:17.210 Did you follow this NBA semifinals? 1011 01:02:17.551 --> 01:02:17.771 Uh-huh. 1012 01:02:18.554 --> 01:02:24.823 Um, notwithstanding that Adam Silver and I are very dear friends and he just texted me something very nice earlier today. 1013 01:02:25.604 --> 01:02:25.965 But... 1014 01:02:26.965 --> 01:02:32.187 Like, do you agree that the way the Thunder was flopping was completely out of

control? 1015 01:02:32.207 --> 01:02:32.847 Oh, it's awful. 1016 01:02:32.967 --> 01:02:33.447 It's awful. 1017 01:02:33.467 --> 01:02:35.028 See, that's where the NBA misses me. 1018 01:02:35.468 --> 01:02:38.369 Because I would, now they have no reason to listen to me, right? 1019 01:02:38.489 --> 01:02:39.730 But I would raise hell on that. 1020 01:02:40.030 --> 01:02:41.650 I went back, literally went back and looked. 1021 01:02:41.750 --> 01:02:43.591 The Mavs beat the Thunder two years ago. 1022 01:02:44.872 --> 01:02:47.753 Back when we still had Luka and a much better team. 1023 01:02:48.513 --> 01:02:51.534 And I went back and looked at one of his games against us. 1024 01:02:52.194 --> 01:02:53.955 All of his shots never fell down. 1025 01:02:54.910 --> 01:02:55.632 Not one time. 1026 01:02:56.595 --> 01:02:57.216 Not one time. 1027 01:02:57.236 --> 01:03:02.430 So it's just, but it's the way the NBA looks and runs their officiating program. 1028 01:03:03.115 --> 01:03:07.236 I mean, it's almost like you can't blame him for doing that if he can get away with it. 1029 01:03:07.416 --> 01:03:08.717 Yeah, because it works. 1030 01:03:09.057 --> 01:03:15.939 But the way, but you know, Adam Silver had instituted a rule that if you did that, they could give you a technical foul. 1031 01:03:16.019 --> 01:03:17.719 It was the dumbest rule ever. 1032 01:03:18.079 --> 01:03:18.339 Why? 1033 01:03:18.559 --> 01:03:21.840 So that if you flopped, they could give you a technical, right? 1034 01:03:22.080 --> 01:03:23.261 Why was it a dumbest rule? 1035 01:03:23.481 --> 01:03:30.523 So most refs aren't capable of being able to identify a flop when they're also looking to see if a foul occurred. 1036 01:03:31.087 --> 01:03:56.792 couple senior ones are but prior to that there was and is a rule that says after the game they could look at a flop and assess a fine for that flop and so when they were having the discussion in the board of governors meetings about this new rule that they want to add um technicals for flopping in game and they showed these examples right and obvious flops i was like 1037 01:03:57.612 --> 01:03:58.593 Raise my hand for a question. 1038 01:03:59.233 --> 01:04:04.876 Hey, guys, those examples you showed, did you find any of those players after the fact? 1039 01:04:06.197 --> 01:04:12.801 And the guy who was up front who knew the answer and was making the presentation said no, and I just saw Adam just drop the thing. 1040 01:04:12.821 --> 01:04:14.522 You said just enforce existing rules is your point. 1041 01:04:14.662 --> 01:04:19.385 Yeah, you know, something needs to happen, and you think that's a solution? 1042 01:04:19.625 --> 01:04:26.249 Yeah, if they would find these guys, but they come up with excuses, because part of it is they don't want to make the refs look bad. 1043 01:04:27.080 --> 01:04:31.343 And if you're finding these players, it implies that they weren't doing their job. 1044 01:04:31.464 --> 01:04:34.686 Build or break asking AI for medical advice. 1045 01:04:35.247 --> 01:04:41.091 Build as long as it's only interim advice. 1046 01:04:41.331 --> 01:04:42.352 Always check with your doctor. 1047 01:04:43.153 --> 01:04:46.235 But yeah, because you can't call your doctor for everything. 1048 01:04:46.695 --> 01:04:47.796 And I'll just tell you, right? 1049 01:04:48.077 --> 01:04:51.179 So I take thyroid medication, levothyroxine. 1050 01:04:51.840 --> 01:04:55.683 And I also had, for a while, low ferritin, low iron levels. 1051 01:04:56.688 --> 01:04:59.229 And I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get my iron levels up. 1052 01:04:59.249 --> 01:05:01.030 So I just put it into chat GPT. 1053 01:05:01.330 --> 01:05:02.390 This was a couple of years ago. 1054 01:05:03.011 --> 01:05:05.452 And I'm like, is there a conflict between the two? 1055 01:05:06.132 --> 01:05:06.792 Yes, there was. 1056 01:05:06.852 --> 01:05:08.993 Don't ever take them within four hours of each other. 1057 01:05:10.723 --> 01:05:11.584 I had no idea. 1058 01:05:12.244 --> 01:05:16.608 But then there's other apps like openevidence.com that I invested in, right? 1059 01:05:16.948 --> 01:05:19.930 Which is just... You invested in OpenEvidence a while back? 1060 01:05:19.990 --> 01:05:20.451 Yeah. 1061 01:05:20.871 --> 01:05:22.572 Why did you never invite me, Cabron? 1062 01:05:22.632 --> 01:05:24.414 I think it's a great company. 1063 01:05:24.434 --> 01:05:24.754 Yeah. 1064 01:05:24.874 --> 01:05:26.716 And the CEO is insane, you know, the founder. 1065 01:05:26.856 --> 01:05:29.198 Yeah, I mean, I don't really know him that well. 1066 01:05:29.578 --> 01:05:33.901 But in any event, so I asked a question on OpenEvidence. 1067 01:05:33.941 --> 01:05:35.102 I asked a question on Cloud. 1068 01:05:35.502 --> 01:05:36.783 And then I looked at the sources. 1069 01:05:37.592 --> 01:05:40.755 Open Evidence had New England Journal of Medicine, da-da-da-da-da. 1070 01:05:41.935 --> 01:05:47.720 All the responses on Claude for this medical question was Wikipedia. 1071 01:05:49.241 --> 01:05:53.765 And so, you know, I'm not taking Wikipedia as the answer. 1072 01:05:54.125 --> 01:05:56.167 I'm not taking Reddit as the answer. 1073 01:05:56.187 --> 01:05:56.947 Definitely not, though. 1074 01:05:57.287 --> 01:06:01.771 Build or break full contact WWE wrestling. 1075 01:06:02.371 --> 01:06:03.172 Oh, I did it twice. 1076 01:06:03.232 --> 01:06:03.672 I loved it. 1077 01:06:03.732 --> 01:06:03.953 Yeah. 1078 01:06:04.153 --> 01:06:04.673 That was good. 1079 01:06:05.113 --> 01:06:05.334 Um... 1080 01:06:06.215 --> 01:06:11.979 So they reached out to me in 2003 after I just bought the Mavs, right? 1081 01:06:12.699 --> 01:06:16.201 And they said, we have WWE coming to Dallas. 1082 01:06:16.221 --> 01:06:18.083 And would you like to participate? 1083 01:06:18.103 --> 01:06:20.224 Because we'll get celebrities come in and do cameos. 1084 01:06:20.604 --> 01:06:23.246 I'm like, I'm happy to do

it, but I have two rules. 1085 01:06:24.327 --> 01:06:25.487 One, I get hit. 1086 01:06:26.887 --> 01:06:28.927 And two, I get to hit somebody. 1087 01:06:29.608 --> 01:06:31.988 And so I got RKO'd by Randy Orton. 1088 01:06:32.608 --> 01:06:34.489 And so we had to practice it and do this stuff. 1089 01:06:34.509 --> 01:06:35.269 And it was still hard. 1090 01:06:36.569 --> 01:06:37.229 It still hurt. 1091 01:06:37.709 --> 01:06:40.570 But that was my role in 2003 when I did it the first time. 1092 01:06:40.930 --> 01:06:42.870 Then I did it again in 2009. 1093 01:06:43.230 --> 01:06:44.131 And I did this whole thing. 1094 01:06:44.151 --> 01:06:45.111 It was WWE Live. 1095 01:06:45.491 --> 01:06:47.591 And I did this whole thing with John Cena and everything. 1096 01:06:47.971 --> 01:06:50.732 And there's this guy, a wrestler named Seamus. 1097 01:06:51.592 --> 01:06:54.896 And they were like, okay, Seamus has never hit the canvas. 1098 01:06:54.916 --> 01:06:55.697 We know your rules. 1099 01:06:56.117 --> 01:06:57.379 You get to put him down. 1100 01:06:57.439 --> 01:07:00.022 So he hits the camera, like hits the canvas. 1101 01:07:00.162 --> 01:07:02.705 But on the flip side, he's going to put you through a table. 1102 01:07:03.886 --> 01:07:04.567 And I'm like, 1103 01:07:04.917 --> 01:07:07.318 I'm like, okay, that's going to look cool on video forever. 1104 01:07:08.058 --> 01:07:10.599 And so it was a real table, a regular table. 1105 01:07:10.619 --> 01:07:11.400 I have to watch this. 1106 01:07:11.420 --> 01:07:14.181 Yeah, just Google my name and WWE. 1107 01:07:14.721 --> 01:07:15.801 But it was a real table. 1108 01:07:16.622 --> 01:07:19.623 And they told me, he's going to put you right in the center of the table. 1109 01:07:19.683 --> 01:07:20.683 It'll just crack in half. 1110 01:07:20.943 --> 01:07:22.264 But keep your head down. 1111 01:07:22.284 --> 01:07:24.685 Because if your head's up and you hit, you'll break your neck. 1112 01:07:25.285 --> 01:07:26.466 I'm like, my head will be down. 1113 01:07:27.046 --> 01:07:28.787 And so he puts me through. 1114 01:07:28.807 --> 01:07:31.749 I guess I ate too much that day because he got me a little bit high. 1115 01:07:32.310 --> 01:07:34.051 And we broke the table. 1116 01:07:34.491 --> 01:07:36.432 I did my whole pretend I'm dead thing, right? 1117 01:07:37.213 --> 01:07:39.534 And, you know, got out of the ring and all that stuff. 1118 01:07:40.015 --> 01:07:41.216 I was sore for two weeks. 1119 01:07:41.636 --> 01:07:43.917 My back hurts so bad. 1120 01:07:44.278 --> 01:07:52.303 Those guys deserve so much respect because it may be orchestrated, but it's still athletic and it's still painful. 1121 01:07:52.723 --> 01:07:53.364 Build or break. 1122 01:07:54.268 --> 01:07:56.409 Dogecoin as actual currency. 1123 01:07:56.869 --> 01:07:58.770 Break. 1124 01:07:59.030 --> 01:08:01.391 Build or break federal crypto regulation. 1125 01:08:01.951 --> 01:08:02.251 Build. 1126 01:08:03.092 --> 01:08:04.892 Build or break hedging. 1127 01:08:05.753 --> 01:08:12.155 Martin Woodall came to me and he said, this was 1999, right after we had sold to Yahoo. 1128 01:08:12.876 --> 01:08:23.240 And he said, there's this house available where this guy spent three years and $25 million to build this house. 1129 01:08:24.207 --> 01:08:26.428 And he has to sell it. 1130 01:08:26.508 --> 01:08:27.148 I'm like, why? 1131 01:08:27.728 --> 01:08:30.728 And he's like, because he never sold a share of stock in his company. 1132 01:08:31.449 --> 01:08:35.609 And the stock of his company just cratered for a variety of reasons. 1133 01:08:35.690 --> 01:08:38.750 And it went from tens or $20 to pennies. 1134 01:08:39.650 --> 01:08:42.891 And he needs money and he needs to sell his house. 1135 01:08:43.471 --> 01:08:44.971 And I'm like, well, how much is it going to cost? 1136 01:08:45.472 --> 01:08:51.173 He goes, he spent 25, three years, only lived there eight months with three kids and it'll cost you $12 million. 1137 01:08:51.193 --> 01:08:51.513 $12 million. 1138 01:08:52.438 --> 01:08:53.939 I'm like, beautiful house. 1139 01:08:54.519 --> 01:08:55.039 Said yes. 1140 01:08:55.400 --> 01:08:58.101 Still live there today, 27 years later. 1141 01:08:58.621 --> 01:08:59.842 But two lessons from that. 1142 01:08:59.882 --> 01:09:02.443 Number one, you got a house for half of what it was worth. 1143 01:09:02.783 --> 01:09:04.344 And number two, he taught you on hedging. 1144 01:09:04.604 --> 01:09:06.025 Yeah, he never protected himself. 1145 01:09:06.365 --> 01:09:09.947 He just always assumed that it's his company, things will be great. 1146 01:09:09.967 --> 01:09:12.648 It goes back to what we talked about early on, right? 1147 01:09:12.948 --> 01:09:16.710 That you can't just always assume that you're right and smart. 1148 01:09:17.130 --> 01:09:19.892 That things can and will go against what you expect. 1149 01:09:20.815 --> 01:09:23.277 Build or break, retiring at 35. 1150 01:09:23.918 --> 01:09:24.258 Build. 1151 01:09:24.738 --> 01:09:25.299 Yeah, build. 1152 01:09:25.519 --> 01:09:26.199 That was my mission. 1153 01:09:26.219 --> 01:09:31.284 I bought a book by Andrew Tobias, How to Retire by the Age of 35 When I Was in College. 1154 01:09:32.004 --> 01:09:38.249 And the whole thing was, if you save enough money, you can live off of the interest rates if you live like a student. 1155 01:09:39.130 --> 01:09:41.232 And at that time, interest rates were like 15%. 1156 01:09:42.633 --> 01:09:51.242 And so it made perfect sense that I was just going to save as much as I could not have to live fancy and I could just have fun and just do whatever I wanted. 1157 01:09:51.703 --> 01:09:52.844 And that was my mission. 1158 01:09:52.884 --> 01:09:57.770 And I think that also got me in the mindset that, you know, I don't need fancy stuff, you know. 1159 01:09:59.007 --> 01:10:07.770 You know, I have that house for the reasons I mentioned, but I drive a Kia, you know, obviously I'm not about getting all dressed up, all that stuff. 1160 01:10:07.810 --> 01:10:12.452 But I think for me, my favorite part about the way you've explained this to me in the 1161 01:10:14.298 --> 01:10:16.161 what you and I do is not work. 1162 01:10:16.661 --> 01:10:17.483 It's fun. 1163 01:10:17.523 --> 01:10:20.947 You're solving problems, you're solving puzzles, you're creating value. 1164 01:10:21.348 --> 01:10:22.610 That's our hobby. 1165 01:10:22.890 --> 01:10:25.934 Yeah, I mean, that's why I never quote-unquote retire. 1166 01:10:26.655 --> 01:10:28.338 I retired a long time ago. 1167 01:10:28.718 --> 01:10:30.020 Like, I literally... 1168 01:10:31.482 --> 01:10:47.735 After I sold Micro Solutions, I bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines, partied like a rock star, just went everywhere, moved out to L.A., got a house on the beach, shared it with two flight attendants, took acting classes, acted in B-movies whose names I'll never mention. 1169 01:10:47.755 --> 01:10:49.316 And your teeth were already better at that point. 1170 01:10:49.336 --> 01:10:51.057 Oh, yeah, I had fixed my teeth by then. 1171 01:10:52.679 --> 01:10:54.880 But, yeah, I was just going to just love life. 1172 01:10:55.120 --> 01:11:00.585 And then I went back to Dallas because I wanted to get back with this girl that I had dated. 1173 01:11:01.225 --> 01:11:02.227 And which didn't work out. 1174 01:11:02.267 --> 01:11:07.836 But then I met with Todd Wagner and that's how AudioNet, which turned into broadcast.com, was born. 1175 01:11:08.278 --> 01:11:09.018 Amazing journey. 1176 01:11:09.218 --> 01:11:09.838 Yeah, it's been crazy. 1177 01:11:09.858 --> 01:11:10.239 Thank you so much. 1178 01:11:10.559 --> 01:11:11.319 Just getting started. 1179 01:11:11.819 --> 01:11:12.279 Thanks, Daniel. 1180 01:11:12.299 --> 01:11:12.639 It was fun. 1181 01:11:12.699 --> 01:11:13.640 Thank you. 1182 01:11:13.860 --> 01:11:15.500 We want you to become a builder with us. 1183 01:11:15.820 --> 01:11:20.161 So subscribe to Builder Break now and leave us a comment or a review. 1184 01:11:20.642 --> 01:11:31.405 We're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch too. 1185 01:11:31.825 --> 01:11:32.225 Thank you.