cover of episode Episode 180: Mark Cuban

Episode 180: Mark Cuban

2022/8/16
logo of podcast Habits and Hustle

Habits and Hustle

Chapters

Mark Cuban discusses his involvement with Cost Plus Drugs, a company disrupting the pharmaceutical industry by providing affordable generic drugs.

Shownotes Transcript

Thanks for listening to the Habits and Hustle podcast made possible by our friends at True Niagen. So I've been a huge fan of True Niagen for years, and that's why I am so excited to be partnering with them because I literally don't miss a day taking it and think if you're going to be using any one supplement, this is the one. And here is why. With of course, an added science lesson for you from me. Our bodies produce a molecule called NAD,

which supports energy production that starts in our cells. But the levels sadly decline by up to 50% between the ages of 40 and 60. A nutrient that could help increase our NAD is a form of vitamin B3 called nicomatide riboside, otherwise known as NR. And the most efficient, proven, and safe way to get this is with TruNiagen because it's the best NAD precursor, meaning that it's not just a supplement, but

Precursor is it helps our own bodies produce NAD. TruNiagen helps support our bodies against everyday stressors that can really damage our cells like overeating, drinking, staying up too late. So in my opinion, no one is too young to take it.

I wish I had this in my early 30s. What's most amazing is that True Niagen is backed by over 200 published scientific studies and is researched by the world's top scientific institutions. So go check it out at trueniagen.com. That's T-R-U-N-I-A-G-E-N. And we have a special offer for new customers to receive 20% off all orders, $100 or more using the code TRUENIAGEN.

Hustle 20 until August 30th, 2022. So definitely run. Don't walk and scoop some up now. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

All right, you guys, this is a special one. We have the one, the only Mark Cuban on the podcast today. I know he doesn't even need an introduction, but because that's what we do here on Habits and Hustle, I'll just go through a few bullet points here. He is the main shark on Shark Tank and quite frankly, in my opinion, the best shark and my favorite. I might be a little biased.

He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He is an investor in over 300 companies. And his latest company that he's extremely passionate about, which really affects all of us, is a company called Cost Plus, which is disrupting the healthcare market, the drug market, by giving people...

drugs, medicine at a low price by eliminating the middleman. It is amazing. He's providing transparency to the market and it is really causing quite a stir for good reason. I got to tell you, I was a huge fan of Mark before I even did this interview and I'm even a bigger fan after. He is so down to earth. He is exactly what you see when you see him on Shark Tank or in interviews. He

really cool. He's awesome. I have to say, I love this interview. I really hope you guys do as well. I think you will. He tells it as it is and what you see is really what you get. He's awesome. Enjoy the interview and leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. Give me some feedback. Enjoy.

I don't even think you need an introduction, of course. I mean, you were like the entrepreneur extraordinaire, right? Whatever. You really are, though. I mean, the truth of the matter is I even remember I was, you were the only, like when I was little, you were the only one I ever knew of, you and Donald Trump. Those are the, I know. So you're saying you're connecting me to Donald Trump and you're telling me I'm old. I'm not. No, I never.

You were like super not, you were like, by the way, you still had the same like vigor and energy. You look exactly the same as you did back when I swear to you. Anyways, moving on. No, I swear. But like you were like the, like you were the maverick. You were the, funnily enough. And you were like the entrepreneur that kind of was so mainstream back then. And it kind of like stayed. So I don't think you really need an introduction, but. I appreciate that. And no, it's true. And by the way, you are, you are Shark Tank. I have to just say. Yeah, I don't know about that, but you know.

Good editing. And the other guys are good too. They're okay. They're okay. But what did they do to kind of get you involved? What was the pitch that they gave you? We're doing this TV show for entrepreneurs. Do you want to come on? And this was the second year. And they're like, come on as a guest shark.

I'm like, sure. And honestly, back then it was 2010 and they wanted me to do three episodes, but it would bounce around Tuesday night, Thursday night. You know, if Desperate Housewives wasn't on on Sunday night, they'd put it there. And I'm like, there's no way this show is going to last. So I'm like, OK, I'm going to go do my three episodes and just raise hell, you know, and just cause as much trouble as I can and, you know, and maybe get some good businesses. And that's what I did. They didn't see me coming. Yeah.

Like the first season was really demure. It was low key, you know, and I was like, screw that. I'm just going to tear it up. And so once I did that and, you know, no one, none of the other sharks knew how to deal with me. It was like, OK,

Okay. Come on back. And then the rest is history. And actually tomorrow we start filming season 14. I can't believe it's been on that long. It's crazy. It's crazy. And the funny thing is it's like, it's, it's across the board. Like my little nine-year-old likes to watch it. Like kids like it. Yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons I do the show because it sends the message that the American dream is alive and well, and you can be anywhere. You can be in LA, you can be in Idaho, you can be in Mississippi. And if you have an idea in your garage, your basement, your bedroom, you

you know, something's possible and you can make your way under Shark Tank and maybe get rich. It's true. And also though, you give the most deals by far. Yeah, by far. Like, does Damon even like give any deals? I've never seen him once give a deal. Well, Damon's not on every episode anymore. Not anymore. Yeah. But yeah, he does his fair share, but I've probably done more than everybody else combined. Oh, easily. Yeah, and I don't know if that's good or bad, but yeah, that's the reality.

Well, it's funny when you, on your website, like it is unbelievable how much stuff that you do. Like I, when I was doing all this research on you and I'm like, Oh, I thought there'd be like just a little bit of stuff. You're all your, all your speeches from like, um,

forever are on there. Are there really? I didn't even know they put them on there. Oh my God. Like so much stuff is there. Plus like everything is in like in subcategories. Yeah. The businesses I know are. How many companies are you invested in? I don't know because we sell them. Some go out of business. You know, right now probably 200, you know, give or take. That's crazy. Yeah. I've got a lot of smart people who help me manage all that. How many people actually work for you and your organization? Just in dealing with the Shark Tank and other deals.

Probably 12. That's all. Oh, that's it? Yeah. You have one. This is like a side note. Alyssa's Cookies or Oatmeal. Yeah, Alyssa's Healthy Cookies. Oh, my God. I'm obsessed with those things. So am I. I eat them every morning for breakfast. No exceptions. They are delicious. You can't get them on the West Coast. Yeah, you can. You can get them at Ralph's, I think. No. No? Trust me. I've checked because I found them in Florida at the Super Bowl two years ago. Yeah.

And I became obsessed with them. And you can only get them at like Public Safeway. And on the website, it was a whole schmadre. So I never ended up ordering them. But I called them a bunch. I was wondering when they're going to be here because they are so delicious. No, because I know because one of my deal parts with Shark Tank is they got to have Alyssa's there during the day for me to munch on. Well, they're ordering it. So I'll find out for you. But you got to hear the story about this guy, Doug Kemp.

He sent me an email saying basically he was living out of his car and broke. And he sent me samples of these cookies. And the first thing I always do when anybody sends me any food is I look at the nutritional information. Yeah. You know, because if it's all fat, sugar, whatever, I'm not going to be interested. Right. So it's this huge cookie. And I turn it over. It's 190 calories for an enormous cookie. That's not bad. Then I look. It's like...

No added sugar. I'm like, that's good. All this fiber, you know, huge amount of fiber, like a whole day's worth of fiber. And then protein. I'm like, okay, let's see how this thing tastes. So I break off a little piece. I'm like, this is good. I'm like, what's wrong with it? What's, you know, so then I go to pull the cookie out of the wrapper and it falls apart.

And I'm like, ah, that's the problem. Because when people go to buy a cookie, they want to eat a cookie, right? So I made them change it to healthy bites because the way their whole manufacturing process works, it's really easy to combine it with a little bit of moisture and put it together. So it tastes moist, right? And they're just these little bites and they stay together. Put eight into a package.

And with eight of them, it's only 360 calories, right? So I eat, yeah, so 45 each. So I eat like all eight of them for breakfast. Oh, that's what I do too. You can't just eat four or two. No, no. And it's only 360 calories for breakfast and I'm getting my fiber. I'm getting, you know, it's like eating healthy cereal, only it tastes better. It's delicious. And you don't, and you feel like you're actually giving, like you don't feel like you're depriving yourself with it. Like that's what I felt like. I feel like, but I could, this is like two years ago or three years ago with the

COVID, I can't remember. Everything like blends. But I haven't looked for the last probably a year. But I did. I was like obsessive over them. We got to find you where they are up here because I know they are. And I ordered them either from Amazon or from. Oh, Amazon, I guess I could get that too. Yeah, and right from the website, Alyssa's Healthy Cookies website. I should just do that too. Are they doing well? Oh, crushing. So this guy went from living out of his car.

and us helping them get started. I mean, I went to Central Market in Dallas and did one tasting thing. Yeah. And then it just blew up from there. Really? And that was more than 10 years ago. Now...

They'll do just under $20 million in revenue, but that's not even the good part. We spend no money on advertising, not a nickel, not a penny. Yeah, nobody knew what they were when I was telling them. Yeah, but people go in there and buy them, but people who buy them keep on buying them over and over and over again, and we'll make $10 million in profits. That is amazing. So this guy went from living out of his car to being Mr. Badass down in Florida, making millions of dollars a year. That's incredible. You know, it's funny that you say that because-

It was for like Maxim's Super Bowl party. And the whole staff, like everybody who was doing it, everyone became obsessed with these things. And we would buy, we would like clean the shelf of every single place. Yeah. I mean, I go in there and I buy like six at a time, eight at a time, wherever I'm traveling. Easily. For sure.

For sure. I mean, Alyssa's healthy cookies and now we have a vegan version and we've got a chocolate version. Yeah. They're all really, really, really good. And like, if you got a little bit of time, you throw them in the microwave and they get really like smooshy. Yeah. Soft. They're great. They're great. And they've got a little travel pack. So you can, I take them in the row with me and my little computer bag and back to back. Yeah. So I can travel with them and I always have something healthy.

Okay, we got to find out about this West Coast thing because that doesn't make sense. What's with you and oats though? With mush? Mush, yeah. I call it mush. I'm Canadian. Mush. And you just love oats? No, it's not that at all. I like things that are tasty and healthy. Yeah, it's true. And Ashley, the female entrepreneur behind it is just insane. I mean, she's just- Amazing. Yeah, she's a force of nature. So when you get companies like that and the entrepreneurs are amazing and the product's amazing and it's healthy-

Yeah, why not? Totally. What's the one thing you look for when you do an investment with a startup? Is it the people or is it the product? Product first, because you can have great people, but if it's not going to sell, it's not going to work. But

You know, I look to see, is this something where I say to myself, why didn't I think of that? Yeah. That's the first thing. And then even if it's not quite that, I'm like, okay, you know, if I'm looking to buy it or a typical consumer or company is looking to buy, is this something that's going to be compelling, differentiated, easy to buy? And if it passes those tests, then I look at the entrepreneur and say, okay, can these people do it? Yeah. Well, you know, I find it interesting. I always stare at you when I watch this show because it's,

I feel like you're very decisive. That's not the answer I wanted after you said that.

Well, maybe I stare at your brother, but this is like an ad, you know, a family show. But what would why is it that like I feel like it's my maybe it's just my opinion. But like you're like so decisive that you like could either you like someone I feel or you don't like them. Like, you know, pretty quickly. Remember, there's a lot of editing that goes on. I know that's what I say. Is it just because of the editing? Yeah, it's because of the editing. Because how long is each pitch really in real life? Stupid ones. Yeah.

20 to 30 minutes. Oh, wow. Intense ones, 90 minutes to two hours. Medium ones, an hour.

Oh, so they're, so that's why, cause there's such, there's so much longer. It's our money and we know nothing about them when they walk into the room. So they're vetted by producers, but not by us. So we know nothing about them. Here comes Jen. They'll say, this is Jen and that's it. So you really, so it really is a surprise when people walk in. Yeah. No idea whatsoever. So then what happens like, well, then you guys do due diligence, right? After we say yes to a deal, we can do due diligence. So what's the, what's the ratio or how much with

percentage of things that go through. So early on for me, it was about 75%. But now we get more and more people who just come on for the commercial. Yeah. And so they'll say, oh, great, we got a deal. And then they'll ghost it. They do. They do. Yeah. Because I've had a few people come on here or I've met in like

real life, whatever. And like they said that they went on and it was not you actually, other people, other sharks. Wouldn't close the deal. Wouldn't close the deal. And it just like, or try to change it. It dragged on and dragged on. Yeah, that's not me. Yeah. Some of the other ones will do that where they'll like try to change the deal terms and this and that. And that's up to them, right? However they want to do it. But if I agree to it, I'll agree to it. But if you drag me out,

then you're playing with fire. Yeah. Because either you want to do a deal and you agree to what you agree to or not. Yeah. And who's your favorite shark besides, you know? I like Barbara the work with the best. Yeah. I like her too. Because we compliment each other because she's really, she looks at people first and I look at deal first or product service first. And so we compliment each other really well. Right. So do you do most of the deals you do with her though? If I can, yeah. If I can, yeah. How about those other two? We'll move off of this, but like, I'm so fascinated by this show. Like, how about the...

Mr. Wonderful. Yeah, he's okay. But Kevin doesn't do a lot of deals. Nothing. And he also wastes people's time. Yeah, that's just shtick, right? Yeah. But he's a great guy. Is he? Yeah, he's a really good guy. He's not like he is on TV. Oh, he's not? No, he's a really good guy. The other one seems very nice. Rob. Robert's too nice, you know? Yeah.

But he's a good guy too. Lori does a good job. You know, Lori is all about her wheelhouse, things that she can just plug in and sell, QVC or whatever. She's going to be great at. Right. So then I want to ask you back because when you were a kid, obviously, you were selling the baseball cards and the garbage bags and like stamps, everything for those basketball shoes that your dad didn't want to get you.

Um, like you were like a boy, you were like a born hustler. Like you just were without question, without question. So were you like the guy, like if I went to school with you, would I be like, Oh, that guy's for sure going to be a billionaire. That guy's for sure going to be successful. No, no, you probably didn't even know who I was. You're you'd be cute. And I'd be a little fat guy. I don't know. I don't know if I'd be the cute one. Um, yeah, like when I was 16, no, when I was

15, 14, 14, freshman in high school. I was playing baseball and I ran into a bicycle and my parents, like my dad did upholstery in cars, didn't have a whole lot. And like, rather than getting me caps, because I broke two teeth running into a bicycle and rather than getting me caps that matched all my other teeth, they got me stainless steel caps so that, because they would last longer, they were cheaper. No way. And so every time I smiled, even like in my high school graduation picture, like there would be these two teeth at the bottom that were steel.

Really? Yeah. I mean, and like if I showed you my 16 year old picture, I was like five, eight, five, nine, weigh 30 pounds more than I do now. Really? Can I see a picture? Do you have one? Let me see. That is, I would never have guessed it.

Because you seem super... Yeah, things change. No kidding. Yes, $4.7 billion later, things definitely change. But you seem very... I mean, I don't know you. Let's picture me at 16. Oh my God. No, it isn't. This does not even look like you. That's me at 16. Wow. Wow.

Wow, I don't even know what to say. The teeth are gone like you got them fixed. No, no, no, no, you just can't see it there. No, I'm saying right now the teeth are gone. Like you got them fixed after you kind of like got out of this whole phase. That's insane. So like you showing everybody it's pretty amazing actually. I would never, but also That's one handsome motherfucker right there. I was going to say the truth is like at the time if you saw some pictures of me when I was 15, 16 it's mortifying.

You know, exactly. Thank you. You don't have to be so, you know, dramatic there. But like, the point is that still, like you are not no, like you seem to have like a confidence though, a self-confidence. Where did it come from to even do all these deals and wheeling and dealing? I mean,

There's two different things, right? Like being confident about girls when you're 16. Well, that's, yeah. And then being in business. Like in business, you can just do the work. Right. That's your thing. Yeah. Do the work. You do the work. So you pick whatever topic and if I need to learn it for business for whatever reason, I can just spend the time. Yeah. And it's just up to me. It's like the saying, the one thing in life you can control is your effort. Absolutely. And so that's just my style. I mean-

You know, I learned early, early, early on that most people didn't. Yeah. You know, and whether it's learning how to code, whether it's learning about business, whether reading this book or watching that video, you can figure shit out. Yeah. Yeah.

most people don't do it and so that that's what gave me confidence because i knew i do i do the work i'm prepared and that that set me apart always so you're just like you you love i read this a bazillion times and i know if you've said this like you just love to learn you read a ton like four hours a day curiosity is one of the greatest business skills anybody can have yeah and once you're curious and you find something that's interesting to you particularly if it fits what you're trying to accomplish then it's just a matter of taking the time to learn it right and

And you were, were you always just very interested in like computers and software? Not computers necessarily. Yeah. My software, what do you call it? Like just. Yeah. All the above, right. Technology. And, um, it wasn't until, um, when I got to Dallas, um, I got a job working for a software store and I had to learn it all right there and then on my own. And, and that's really what got me into it. I found out that because, you know, I didn't mind reading software manuals, hardware manuals, whatever that, um,

that gave me an edge and I could sell. So you combine the two together and I was taught myself how to program. And, you know, I, I did really well as a salesperson selling software until I got fired, you know, and then I started my own company in the rest of this history. Well, also like you're very self-reliant, like you don't like mentors. You never had a mentor, right? No, never. Nope. What's your reason for like, do you like, cause when people have asked you that before, you're like, no, I don't believe in them. It's not that I don't believe in them to each their own, but it's just like,

Going through the process of figuring things out is a skill. Learning how to understand a market or a company or a product or service is a skill. And there really aren't shortcuts. And I get having a mentor to introduce you to people and all that kind of stuff. But those same people will introduce you just as a referral if you have a great product or service and you're good at what you do. And that's the way I always looked at it.

And like, so like, what do you do? Because you're in the situation now where everybody wants you to be their mentor or something from you, you know, all the time, right? Like you say, fuck off. Did you say that? Does it work? Does it work? Because especially the 16 year old kids, you know, exactly right now. I mean, it just depends on the circumstances. Like typically what I'll do is just say, okay, you know, send me an email. Yeah. And if it's a question I can answer, I will.

And as long as they don't ask me 50 questions, you know, as long as they don't ask me things that are easily answered just by searching online. Right. You know, then I'll try to help them. Because sometimes, I mean, it's crazy, even like probably what I would have done, like 12, 13 year old kids that'll email me with business questions.

you know, though it's very, you can tell it's very self-serving, you know, or I'll get parents emailing me for their kids. And so they do what they say. Yeah. It's just like, oh, my son or daughter is really interested in ABC. Can you answer these questions? I'm like, no, I'm not gonna answer them for you. Now, if your son or daughter took the initiative, what's insane not to go too far. Like now I'll get emails from parents saying,

adults, you know, 22, 24, 28 years old, you know, asking for job advice for their kids. I'm like, hell no. You know, crazy. The culture we have now. I don't know if it's culture per se, or just like these parents that are just like a lot of them. Yeah. Helicopter parents to the 9,000th degree. Absolutely. And I'm like, no.

You know, I just want to respond. How do they get your information? Like you're so accessible though. Yeah, my email is public. Like, so I was going to say like, how do you not have like, aren't you just in it all day? I know you have 10 phones you carry around. Well, no, I got two. Well, three I have, yeah. Just in case I need better service or I can be working on one and whatever, talking to other. But in any event, like, you know how you can just set up preview mode on your email? So I just read the preview. And if it's interesting, yeah.

I read it. And if it's not, I hit the delete key. It takes me two seconds. Wow. You must be doing that all day though. Yeah. You know, it doesn't matter if I'm eating lunch or doing whatever, you know, and it's, you know, me time where I can just bang through them. And there's always something interesting there. And I've literally gotten emails where I've invested probably over a hundred million dollars from people I don't know. And a lot of, there's one company that I invested, I don't know how many millions now, and they're out here in LA and they're begging me to come visit because I've never, never met the guy, Relativity Space. And,

That's what it's called? Yeah, Relativity Space. What do they do? They do 3D printing for space rockets, for rockets. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and it's enormous. And I think their last valuation was $4 billion, which made my stuff worth like a whole lot of money. No kidding. Because it was just these guys from Dallas who were talking to me about, they want to use 3D printing to build rockets. I'm like, that's really cool. I asked some questions, did some homework. They answered all the questions great and everything.

And so I gave him like 75 750 grand for 20 or 25 of the company now i've been diluted significantly since then because they've raised a bunch But and you know, even as i've put in more. Um, but yeah, it's worth You know enough to cover all my bad investments. That is amazing. I never met them. Yeah With the cost plus drugs. Um, dr. Ash my ass go that was a cold email. I was gonna say tell the story That is crazy. The guy just called like just emailed. Yeah, just emailed me. Um

A guy named Dr. Oshmayansky, who is a radiologist, practicing radiologist, also has a PhD in math and statistics, also did one year of law school just for the fun of it. I mean, just insanely smart. Everything comes easy to him intellectually.

And he sends me an email. It was a subject line. I don't even remember. But it was basically saying that he wanted to create a compounding pharmacy to make generic drugs that are

often out of supply, right? And because they're out of supply, the people who make them can charge anything they want. Because if you happen to have that disease that needs it, you're going to do all you can to get it. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool, but that's too short-sighted. We got to do it for all generics. And so this was going on four years ago. We started what turned out to be a company called costplustrugs.com.

And I kind of massaged the whole business plan and invested. And basically, we have built this company. If you go to costplusdrugs.com, we tell you exactly what our cost is for any drug we sell. We just added 113 more today. So now we're closing in on 1,000 different SKUs. Today alone? Because yesterday you added a bunch. No, we reduced prices yesterday. Oh, those are the... Okay. And added a bunch today. And so...

Just the fact you're reducing prices on drugs at all is insane. It's amazing. That's a real problem. No, it's a huge problem. That's why we did this. And so now if you go to costplusdrugs.com and you put in a monotub, which is for people with leukemia, as I found out,

And you could see that our cost is $45 and we sell it for, or $48 and we sell it for $54, right? You'll see our cost, we add 15%, that's it. It's $3 for the pharmacy handling fee and $5 for shipping.

That's like a game changer. It has been. That is a disruptor. It's changing a lot of things. You know, it's crazy. Some things that we didn't even expect to see. Somebody, because they see our costs, let alone our pricing, now they're able to back in to a lot of the bidding that goes on for different insurance companies. And somebody did...

Some research that said if for just 77 of our of our drugs buying a basic quantities if Medicare bought from us instead of where they buy now It would say 3.6 billion dollars a year and that's just 77 drugs and you know, that's crazy Now we've got more than 900 so you can see where it's going But you know in this country in 2022 We should never be in a position where you have to choose between your rent your

your food and your medication yeah and we've been able to change that and you know we were thought we were going to primarily deal with people without insurance but as it turns out not only were people without insurance really benefiting and saving a ton of money but people with insurance were more often than not cheaper than people's co-pays yeah that's what i was going to say you could have co-pays alone are so high yeah so i mean you might have a 25 co-pay yeah you know and if any of our you're buying a drug that costs less than 25 bucks you're saving money

That is, well, actually the other thing is like you have to hit a minimum. So for me, I don't even bother. I have to just pay out of pocket until I hit a place where it's so expensive that like this, even like it doesn't even matter where you are socioeconomically. It's so helpful. Yep. So you check us out, costplusdrugs.com. Just go in there, look for the medication or your parents or your aunts, your uncles, your

your grandparents, whatever. And if we have it, we will save you money guaranteed. That's amazing. So even like something like a GoodRx, right? That was, you know, that crashed and all these other ones are coming in. GoodRx is great, but any of the coupon companies, what they do is they work within the system. Right. And so you'll see like,

The Walmart's two, you know, two miles away is a different price than the Walmart's one mile away. Right. And CVS, you know, can save you $4. And then if you go back two weeks later, it's a completely different price. And so with ours, it's just the same price. Right. No matter what. Now, you can't just go pick it up because we mail it to you, right? But it'll show up in three to seven days and you can order, you know, whatever quantity you want. And the more, the bigger the quantity, as long as your doctor prescribes it, the lower the price you'll pay.

So guys out there that want, you know, generic Cialis, I mean, it's like 18 cents a tablet where it was, you know, who knows how much otherwise. So how do you, like, how are you guys, like, what's your projection? Like by next year, are you going to have how many drugs and like what's available? We hope to have over, you know, close to 2000 by year end. And, you know, and there's other things like metho, methoxane, I forget which drug it is that, you know, is really, um,

an issue right now because of Roe versus Wade being overturned. Yes. You know, birth control. So our pricing, you know, both are generic. And so our pricing is so much lower. So people can buy, you know, birth control far less expensively than they could before. Right. This drug that has a lot of different uses, but because one of them is for a

Could potentially cause a medical abortion. There's a lot of pharmacists who won't sell it now particularly in southern states So we'll sell all that stuff, you know, as long as it's prescribable and we can carry it we'll sell it That is and I went last night and I looked around like it's so it's also very simple. Yes Put it in. Yeah, so, you know if you're buying birth control you just put in whatever brand you use and we'll show you the generic version and You can you know buy it, you know, what I just say I was talking to somebody. Um, I

Three count 48, you know for 25 or whatever. It's like just insanely low versus and also I saw there's a button there where it's like Well, if you don't have a drug I can say okay i'm looking for just sign up and tell us what you're looking for Yeah, and then what's the problem? Can you guys like if you get enough requests? Are you guys trying to yeah, we tried we're trying to add everything but it's just good to know If we you know, if we get a ton of people asking for one specific drug, then we'll prioritize that first

Now, is that your major thing right now that you're super excited for? Yeah, that's everything right now. Yeah, that's like that you're super excited for. Yeah, that's game-changing type thing. That is more than game-changing. Like, I mean, when I heard it, when I initially heard about it, I was like, I was, I didn't even believe it because I thought it was too good to be true. That's what a lot of people say. What's the catch? Yeah. You know, we don't sell your information. You don't have to pay a monthly fee.

None of that stuff. Yeah, it's amazing. You don't need a card. It's just straight up. We take our cost plus 15%, and then we just hope we sell enough to cover all our costs. And is it true that you guys now have already surpassed what you thought you were going to be? Yeah, I mean, we're way past what we thought we'd be two years in. That's amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. So no wonder you're all in on that one. Yeah, no, you have to be, right? And if we get enough customers or patients, definitely.

then the brand names are going to have to sell to us. And we think we'll have some brand name drugs by the end of the year. What is Fire Chat? Is that Fire Chat? Oh, no, that's Fireside Chat. Yeah, what's Fireside Chat? So imagine doing this podcast right now, and it's really got a lot of interactivity. So when you do a podcast, particularly if you do it live, you're doing it

to the ether, right? You just don't know. With Fireside Chat, if you're doing particularly a live podcast, we're the only platform. We patented it, and it was my idea. Of course it was. People are listening. You can hit one button for applause, right? So while we're having this conversation, if we were streaming it live, and it can be audio, video, whatever, however you want to do it, multi-platform, and, you know,

you say, talk about cost plus drugs and people clap, right? Yeah. You show that picture and people boo, right? Hit a button for that, right? Or nothing, you know, or just having that feedback because that's always the hardest part about doing a podcast. Yeah. You know, whether it's audio or video, you just don't know how people respond. And then the minute you drop it,

You look for the emails, but it's the same people that send you emails. Oh, it's great. It's great. Why don't you talk about this? Please talk about this. Exactly. Or the PR person who says, can we come on? Right. And that's your only feedback. Maybe there's something on social media. There's reviews and stuff like that. But it's not. You're right. It's not. It's not really a consumer. Right. It's not the people who are watching or listening. Absolutely not. And that's a real challenge. And then the analytics are awful, too.

Yeah. You know, now they're getting better, but they're still pretty bad. And so we solve all that. So we got to get you hooked up with, um, Fallon, um, Fatima, who's the CEO. Is that her? She's a, she's a, cause I, the reason how I found out again, weirdly enough, a couple of weeks ago, my friend said, Hey, have you heard of this fireside fireside chat? And I'm like, no, I've never heard of it. Cause you were involved in another platform that I thought they were talking about. What was another, not bright. That's a, what's his name?

uh who's madonna's manager it was his name yeah yeah yeah he has one of these platforms like everyone's clubhouse yeah not clubhouse it was what was that one bright bright something like that like every day there's a new there's a new one there's a new like a new one coming up and they knock on my door and i'm like i'm not going to be involved with this i mean because they all like come and go so quickly yep you know this one's got us behind it and um yeah well yes yeah and it's it's good just

Being able to have that interactivity and just get that feedback, that tactical feedback is everything, right? Because that's the one piece that nobody has. No, and that's the one piece that makes it hard. Yes. And particularly since, you know, as you're growing, it's hard to know if...

you know, the listeners or viewers are appreciating what you're doing. Yeah. And, you know, everybody tries to have a little personality in what you do and you try to bring the energy, but you just don't know if it's falling on deaf ears. Yeah. You know, it's hard enough to know the downloads and how, you know, how long people actually listened.

But if people are, if, you know, if we decide to do this live next time and, you know, we do it on Fireside, then you just can get people responding in real time. Plus, you know, if you want to add the regular chat to get people to talk, but, you know, we don't recommend that because then you spend your whole time. Like if you do a Twitch or, you know, live YouTube, you're looking, or even TikTok, you're looking at the feed the whole time and you're not really entertaining or communicating. You're looking down to see if anybody typed anything to you. That's true.

That's IG Lives. That's why I don't like those IG Lives. It's very distracting. Yeah, because you just want to read it if it's going too fast and da-da-da-da-da. Exactly. With this, you get the same net effect.

Well, that's, I mean, that's actually a very interesting kind of platform. And how long has it been around? We launched less than a year ago. And is it doing well? Yeah, yeah. No, we're really controlled. We don't want to make the same mistake that Clubhouse made, right? So we really try to make sure that we vet all content creators because we don't want it to go far right, far left, too far up, too far down. And we have...

vetted listeners, viewers, and general mission. And they each have different... Because we don't want it all of a sudden to be hijacked. Because you know, like on IG Live and everything, people come in and hide Clubhouse and people hijack it. So we really try to control all those things. And so the people who use it love it. What do you think of Clubhouse? I never got into it. I thought it was...

I mean, it was fine. I didn't like it. It's a funny story. The guy, I forget his name though, but one of the founders had the very first podcast on broadcast.com, AudioNet, in 1995. Oh, really? First Snow Mountain Report. Yeah. And so you're talking about a small world, but-

Sometimes you get caught up in your KPIs, right? Where you just want to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow and show the world that you're dominating. But like happens in any communities, people try to take over. And people, it could be a multiverse, a metaverse. It can be any chat community, chat room. There's always somebody who tries to dominate it to take possession of it and get power. And that's what happened to Clubhouse. And that's the exact thing we're trying to avoid with Fireside Chat. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I'm going to check that out more.

Please. Yeah, I can connect you to Fallon. She's great. I'm curious about it. So now that Elon's not buying Twitter, are you going to buy Twitter? No, I can't afford it. No? Okay. What do you mean you can't? Well, yeah, you're right. You can't afford it. But you can get some other investors behind you. I'd rather do the cost plus drugs. Yeah. That's bigger impact. That to me is like... And it could be a much bigger company too. So... That's literally can overtake the entire... Like the whole healthcare system. I don't know if we can get the whole healthcare system, but we can at least influence... We can be big enough...

That even if we don't make any money and we just break even and reinvest, we can be big enough that we change behavior for all the other pharmaceutical companies. Yeah. Wow. That is such a lofty undertaking. Isn't it? Yeah. It's crazy. It's so crazy. And I never, you know, we didn't know when we first launched whether or not, you know, what the uptake would be.

You know, I knew we knew like we don't spend any money on advertising like Alyssa's cookies because we know that like if you have leukemia and you're paying, you know, $500 for a monotab and now you're getting it for 54, you're telling your doctor and you're telling everybody, you know, in your Facebook group, but everybody with leukemia that to buy it here for cheaper. And that's what happens. Absolutely. You don't need to have any, you don't need to have any advertising. No, and it keeps our costs a lot lower so we can keep on selling for cost plus 15%.

More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. So imagine that you can essentially guarantee that your customers will read what you have to say. As an entrepreneur, I know how difficult it is to cut through the noise and reach your customers. At best, only a fraction of an audience ends up seeing and reading your emails or social media posts. Now imagine that you can essentially guarantee that your customers will read what you have to say. And that's what you get with simple texting.

Did you know that text messages have a 98% open rate and not only that 94% are read within the first hour.

Simple texting makes it easy, fast and affordable to reach lists of contacts, have two-way conversations and trigger automated texts. There are so many ways to use texting too, whether it's to set up an appointment, announce sales, run polls, collect customer information. I mean, it is actually endless and it works because texting is the most convenient way to reach people.

Plans start at $29 per month, but you can try out simple texting for free for 14 days and see what happens when your audience doesn't ignore your message. It only takes a few minutes to create your account and start sending. Special offer, text HABITS, H-A-B-I-T-S to 833-2-T-R-Y-S.

That's 833-287-9767. That's text HABITS to 833-287-9767 to get an extra 500 free texting credits on your trial.

How do you do all of this? I mean, honestly, like your schedule between the Shark Tank, all those companies doing like these things. I mean, like what time are you waking up in the morning? Six, 536. Like what's the date? Like give me a day in the life of you. So I probably should admit this, but like I'll get up at 536, particularly during the school year when my kids are going to school. You have three kids too. Yeah, 12, 15 and 18. Yeah. Are you involved? Do you see these kids? Yes. How are you able to do all of this? I don't travel that much unless they're out doing stuff.

So like right now, my middle daughter, Alyssa's at camp. My wife and my youngest son, Jake, who's 12, are in Iceland right now. They went on a trip because while I'm shooting Shark Tank, that's when they all know to go do their trips. That's a good idea. Yeah. And then my oldest is on a trip as well. So with her class. And so all, you know, so while we're shooting, they're gone. And so that's when I pack everything in. And then you do everything. Yeah. But otherwise, you know, I can do one day trips here, one day trips there because it's

you know, I'd rather spend time with my family. So you, so you are like, you spend a lot of time with your, yeah, of course. Yeah. That's the best. Yeah. That's the best part of my life. Okay. So tell me the day, give me your daily. You wake up at, you said six o'clock. Yeah. Five 36 do, you know, say hi to everybody. Guess everybody going to school if that's what's up. And, um,

then do my email and typically get back in bed do my email get through any emergencies go back take a nap really yeah oh yeah so wait so you do the emails first before you do anything else right yeah i saw that you'd said that a bunch of times yeah and you know i've got an eye watch like you right so i look at my sleep right so i wear it while i sleep so do you wear an aura ring or anything no that i didn't yeah i didn't get the feedback i'm surprised because you love all the i love all the technology and stuff yeah but i just didn't get the feedback the way you know i tried a whoop

and just the data. Yeah. I didn't like that either. So it was also like cumbersome. Yeah. It was a pain in the ass. Right. Terrible. Yeah. And so I get good data with this and yeah, whoop wasn't awful, but I already had this. Right. So, you know, exactly. Like then you're just constantly like looking at all these different things. Right. And it's not just exercise stuff. I can get stock prices and all that other shit. Right. Absolutely. And so I'll,

See how much sleep I got, you know, because you don't really you might feel okay. And you don't, you know, when you didn't sleep, but sometimes you don't know how much sleep you got 100%. Exactly. And so like, if I got my 200 deep, deepest sleep, right, my two, my two hours, rather, then I'm usually pretty good. Right, right. So wait, what time do you go to bed at night? Typically, anywhere from midnight to 130.

Okay. And then you wake up around. Okay. So you get like you're in bed for about five, six hours. And then if I didn't really get good sleep, then I get my email done. And go back to bed. Go back to sleep. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I am so shocked. Yeah. So I get an hour. Like I'm not one of these people that's just like, oh, I just got to slug it out, whatever. Yeah. Because remember, everybody's got to kiss my ass. Yeah. Right? Exactly. I know.

love you so much. Yes, they do. You know, they might say not right. And I might not like it because I hate that. But everybody works to my schedule. Yes. You know, it's like I love you tomorrow. Yeah, sure. Okay. Can you come over now? Sure. Now and I don't really do meetings or calls calls. I really, really don't because waste of time. Yeah. And plus, like,

There's no record of it. It's not searchable because I have so much shit going on that I want to be able to go back and look and say, okay, when did Jen hit me up last? And what were we talking about? What was the topic? So you like to have it in writing. Yeah, I like to have it so it's searchable. Which is different than that dust thing that you're involved with. Yeah, dust is like a real-time version of a face-to-face conversation. So with dust, it's important because there's certain business things that I want to talk about that we're not going to be face-to-face.

But I don't want it to be an email. And I don't want there to be a record of a phone call. Exactly. Because let's say we're getting ready to fire somebody or there's a lawsuit that I have to- Do you get sued a lot? No, hardly ever. Really? Yeah, hardly ever. At your level? Yeah, less than 10 times my entire life.

and you know, half of them were garbage. - What? - Yeah. - That's incredible by the way. - Yeah, it's just-- - I've never heard of such a thing. - Yeah, I mean-- - With your kind of like wealth and success. - Yeah, and I never sued people either. It's just not worth the hassle. - I know, it's probably like it's worth, it's like the time and energy and the money that it actually takes. - Yeah, it's not worth it.

But yeah, so I use Dust all the time. You can hit me up on their blog, Maverick. I answer questions just because I want to support the platform. But it's just because I want some things to be private. And with Dust, when you send a message, you can delete it when you want it or it auto-deletes, but it's never stored on a hard drive anywhere. And so there's just no way to retrieve it, period, end of story. Yeah.

So I never even heard of this before I started digging deep into your life. I mean, I didn't realize this is like a thing. People are using it. Amir, did you even know it existed? Of course. Oh, sorry. Well, you're a tech genius. That's why you know. But it sounded like Snapchat to me. In some respects. But Snapchat still keeps everything, right? It might disappear, but it's on their server somewhere.

That's right. Right. Same with Instagram and vanish mode or whatever. Right. The other ones, right. Telegram, you can set it to delete. So the other people don't see it, but you know, if there's a subpoena because you were doing some business deal and somebody wants to get those records, it's still possible to get them. Oh,

Wow. Okay, so go back to your schedule. So you wake up at 6 o'clock, you do your emails. Yeah, take a nap if I'm tired. How long is the email part? Like a half an hour, an hour? No, an hour and a half, two hours. Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's from like 6 to 8 p.m., right? In bed you're doing it now. Yeah, just laying in bed, whatever. Okay. And then go get my Alyssa's cookies. Yes. Some water. How about coffee? Do you drink coffee? No, I'm not a coffee drinker, no. Tea? Sometimes I'll drink tea, but usually just water. Okay.

And then if I have anything to do, then I'll just go do it. If it's Monday, Wednesday or Friday, I try to set time to go play basketball. Then back about 2 p.m. and back to my email. And no matter where I'm at, if I'm eating, whatever, I'm always doing my email.

always yeah i cannot believe how accessible and easy it's unbelievable like if i email you i will get it if i don't get a response in like the five ten minutes i would think i think oh he's just gonna like he doesn't care yeah that's probably true typically that's true either he just deleted my email or like something was actually wrong with you because you were so accessible like unbelievable yeah i take pride in it because you know you should unless someone's just like

being annoying or pitch me or whatever well I just block them which is a great feature that gmail ad uses hit block it's a great one actually you're right but yeah then I'll try to respond so then okay so you go back to bed if not then you have basketball when do you work out because I thought like well so I set my move points to try to get a thousand move points a day okay and that typically gets me to three thousand calories a day and

And then I also- Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. What else do you eat besides the Alyssa Cookies that I know you're obsessed with too? You know, I've got a woman who makes me natural foods, right? So- Because you're a vegan, right? Just vegetarian. Vegetarian. Yeah. So I like eggplant. So I'll put cheese on eggplant. Oh, okay. So my little version of eggplant parmesan, but I use MyFitnessPal to track-

all of my everything and I eat so I try to keep it to 2,000 to 2,200 calories okay and so you can never get the calories exactly right I know and the tracking is never exactly right so it's a round yeah so it's a close enough approximation that it works for me right and it makes me you know keeps me good I try to make sure that um

I get enough iron because I'm vegetarian. So, you know, I'll typically at lunch or maybe after the cookies, I'll get one of these little cups of Rice Krispies. And that is one serving plus a little bit, 140 calories, but it's got like 70% of the iron. And then iron is absorbed better if you drink it, if you have it with vitamin C. So I'll drink a glass of orange juice with it.

Oh, so you're doing all... So basically, when did you become a vegetarian? Like four years ago. Is it because of a health situation? No, not an issue, just because I wanted to feel better. You know, supposedly it reduced inflammation. I've had both my hips replaced. You know, I'm still playing basketball, so I'm going to be sore. And, you know, so it makes me feel better. Do you feel better then? Oh, yeah. It's night and day. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I don't eat meat or, you know, sometimes I'll eat fish. Like if I'm starving, I have no choice. Yeah. But typically I won't. And then...

I won't eat fried foods and I try to avoid sweets, which is almost impossible. So my strategy is to always have a thing of Alyssa's cookies out. So when my kids have all the garbage on our counter, then I can grab an Alyssa's. So you really are like that obsessed with these cookies. Cause I've heard you talk about them too. Like that's how I was for like a good year about these cookies. They are that good though. That good. Yeah. Do you eat mush, mush, whatever you want to call it? Yeah, I have mush in the fridge too. You have that too. And then, okay, so let's get back to the exercise. So you do, I,

you're an investor maybe in rise nation or you're not an investor in rise nation. I love rise nation. Yes. It's a hard workout. Yeah. You get to go your own speed. Right. So, right. But it's a versaclimber is like, it's also like, but you know, the, the beauty of it at one is low impact, you know, so you're not going to feel your joints. You're, you're not going to hurt that at all. Yeah. And it's full body, right. Cause you're moving legs and arms. Um,

But, you know, when you first start, you know, in a 30-minute class, you might get 1,000 steps. Yeah. And then you build it to 1,500. Then you build it to 2,000. Then 3,500. Then 4,000, right? Yeah. And then the superstars can do more. But your cardio, like, I don't get tired when I play basketball anymore. Right. It's great. I can go on a Peloton bike and just crank through 30-minute class or 45-minute class. Did you do Peloton then too? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So you do everything. You're very versatile. Well, it's just accessibility, right? So if I'm on the road, sometimes there's not going to be a VersaClimb. There's not going to be a Rise Nation there. So I'll do Peloton, either the treadmill or the bike. And lots of times when I'm doing the bike, I try to go, if I'm just cruising, I try to hit the 180 average output or 190. And if I'm really pushing, I'll try to do 200, 210. Wow. And then just...

you know, but you know, it's great. It's a great workout. I want to show you something. There's like a thing. Have you seen the hit axle before? I'm going to show this to you. You're going to love it. A lot of, a lot of the athletes are using it and sports teams use it. I'll show it to you. It's like a side thing, but so you're doing, how many times a week would you say you work out besides the basketball? Six, you know, basketball is a workout. It's a huge workout.

work out but um so one or the other six times a week sometimes seven do you still work out at lifetime fitness yeah you do basketball yeah that is so funny we don't have any here in la really it's no and they should bring it because it's the best gym it's nice as long as they have a basketball court it's a huge basketball and they have every piece of equipment they got everything i'm telling you the west and i take zumba classes on saturday morning hell yeah oh

Oh my God, that is so fun. And you know, because way back when, when I started, it was like three guys and 80 women. And so it's just the ultimate distraction. That's actually a great, that's a great place for guys to go meet girls. That's where I met my wife. At a Zumba class? No, no, no, playing basketball. Oh, you were going to say at a Zumba class?

You've been married for what, 20 years? 20 years, yeah. Wow. And so, okay, so let's get back to the... Since this is with entrepreneur, let's ask some more entrepreneurial questions since we should probably do that. So would you say the number one... Not to pivot that hard, but like, would you say the number one reason why people are failing then is because their lack of ability to work hard and to kind of dig in? What would it be? No, I'd say...

They're misguided and they sell themselves. They lie to themselves when they start. Right. Oh, I think this business is good. Everybody goes through that same process with a new business. You know, hey, what do you think about this idea? Right. Then you go on Google and you look at how I don't see it. It's great. Of course, no one tells you that it's not there because 50 companies have failed doing the same thing. And there's nothing left to show that they died. But, you know, then you get excited. You check with your friends and then they try to raise money.

Yeah. That's what screws them up, right? Raising money is not an accomplishment. It's an obligation. Yeah. You know, if at all possible, you want to start just organically with sweat equity. Those are the best businesses because you get to retain 100% of it. Right. You know, and there's no rush. And then the second mistake people make is they push the top line instead of the bottom line or gross margin dollars. Yeah.

You know, it's like, oh, I'm a million in sales. Like that's an accomplishment or 10 million. Where like, if you've raised funding, you have your quote unquote KPIs, right? Right. Or what's the new one? QOKs or something. There's something ridiculous that QKP, I don't know. They always come up with these acronyms. What is it? QKP, I don't know. Just the one I started seeing. And so everybody's like, oh yeah, you know, and they think it's an accomplishment if you're doing, I went from 1 million to 5 million in sales. Right.

Okay, that's somewhat great. But what matters is what's your gross margin? Right. Because if you're in that hamster wheel where you're growing, but you need to keep on raising money to grow. Right.

That's not good. No. You see what's happening now when people can't raise money, you're done. And while others have said, well, I've raised $30 million or $50 million or $100 million, unless you have a really good reason, your relativity space, and you need to raise money because you're building 80-foot tall 3D printers. Yeah. Right? You're not going to do that out of your basement. But for most entrepreneurs, it's something where it's an arbitrage on their time. Yeah.

Right here's I can do this more efficiently than jan or mark can so it's worth it for jan or mark to buy this product or service from me so that They can use their time more efficiently. So you'll pay so, you know Effectively i'm so efficient that my cost to do this is ten dollars. You value it at 25 I sell it at 18. We're both happy. Yeah, right. Most people sell an arbitrage on their time and and but

They don't, that's basically what their product or service is, but they don't look at it that way. They look at it and say, okay, I'm creating this, you know, I'm going to open up my own training facility, right? Because I'm a personal trainer and I have 40 clients and I need a place to take them. Why not open my own? I'll get six others or I have a beauty salon and I'll get, you know, I'll have slots for eight other stylists to come in and rent a spot. Right. Right.

They don't think it through that you got to make money at this stuff, right? It's not just about top line. It's bottom line. And I think that's where most entrepreneurs make their mistake. And, you know, you get caught in if you get caught up in growth, you're

You can grow yourself out of business. Yeah. And most people don't realize that. It's true. I also do think that people like, I feel like it's become like the sexy thing to do now. The word entrepreneur is like super hot and sexy. I hope so. I hope so. Right. Because of you actually. Shark Tank has made it much worse. No, but Shark Tank has definitely. But you know, if 90% fail, 10% could change the world. Yes. And like the cost plus is going to probably change the world. Yeah. You know, I always tell entrepreneurs, you know, or when I talk to kids, I always tell them, you know, just ask yourself a question. Why not me? Mm-hmm.

Why can't I be the one that just changes everything because one of them's going to and even though You know some might feel entitled some might not do the work Some may be lazy and not realize how much work is involved to be an entrepreneur that happens You're gonna find the same thing if you're a carpenter a videographer You know an editor where some people don't do the work and the great ones do yeah, and you know

And, but you know, I, this is cliche now, but I say it all the time. It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only got to be right one time. That's the hundred. You have a lot of these like good one-liners. I love them. Like, well, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, that one I stole. Yeah, that one I stole. That one really wasn't yours. This one, hold on. I have one here that I really liked. Hold on a minute. Which one was it? Cause you have so many good ones.

Most people don't put the, which one was it? Practice until you can't, well, that one, I'm not sure. I stole that one, yeah, I stole that one. Was that Nick Saban, actually? Practice until you can't get it wrong? No, that's been around for a long, yeah, that's been around a long time. Oh, which one's selling? You have one on selling. Oh, sales cures all. Yes. Yeah, that one's mine. That's yours? So basically what you mean is like, as long as you can, if you can sell, then that's all that really matters, right? Then you're gold. Yeah, you're good. Right. Because no company's ever succeeded without sales. Right, you need sales no matter what. You need sales.

Otherwise, you're out of business before you start. Exactly. Sales gears off. So does that mean that you have to be a good salesperson as well? Yes. Because if it's your baby and you don't love it enough to be able to sell it or figure out how to sell it,

It's awful tough. Well, look at you, right? Like you're already established and you're going on all these things, promoting these companies that you're involved with. Like most people don't have that kind of ethic to do that work ethic. They get bored. They think they're too good for it now. They don't want to do it. I don't do a lot of these, but not podcasts, but you're out there like, you know, talking about whatever, whatever. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, I've got a platform that most people don't have. Well, yeah, but, but it brings for sure. Yeah.

But it brings up a good thing. And a few more dollars than most people. Yeah, right? But that's a whole other story. But I wasn't always in that position. Right. And so even, you know, back in the day when I had MicroSolutions, my first company after I got fired, like one of the things I learned, I learned a lot from companies I got fired from. Most of them, it was like what not to do. You know, I had a boss that, my boss had fired me, a guy named Michael Humeki at the software store. Oh, yeah.

and h-u-m exactly at the software store i love it yeah anyways and that went out of business three months later you fucked up michael yeah thank you yeah thank you for doing it yeah um but like he would never go on sales calls he would never see he probably thought he was too good for it he was the ceo yeah and i had another job same thing guy david i forget his last name though but um

He told me where to buy a suit when I was buying my suits too for $99. Oh, that's great. You know? Yeah. And I was... My shirts, I would wear button-down shirts, but I bought them at this place called The Clothes Horse, which is all resale. So, like...

I went five years before I bought my first business shirt that someone hadn't worn before. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. I learned, you know, you got to sell. Yeah. Because in my experiences, the CEOs, the owners, the founders that didn't sell, they all failed. Yeah. With no exceptions, 100% of them failed. And, you know, when you're just starting and it's just you, who else is going to sell? Nobody. Nobody.

And that's the other, you know, and that leads to another mistake entrepreneurs make. They try to hit hiring home runs, right? So when the minute they hit a roadblock, I'll just hire, you know, I'll hire a new marketing person, right? Or I'll hire a new head of sales, right?

thinking that, oh, this person's amazing. No one's ever hired somebody and said they suck really bad. Of course not. Right? Oh, I found the most amazing person. Why'd they leave the last five jobs? Oh, they were amazing, but, right? That's such a good point. See, that's what I love how your brain works. It's like exactly, it's so true. It's so practical and common sense. It's pragmatic. Yeah, right. It's common sense, but common sense isn't so common. No, I know. You know, you just ask why, why'd they leave?

But entrepreneurs tend to think, okay, I'm hiring this amazing marketing person and he or she is going to know what to do. And then they tell that to their investors because that's typically why they're hiring a marketing person. And they say, oh, this person is amazing. Our next quarter is going to be great. Then it's not. Then they go to the next marketing person. Then they're in this hamster wheel again and they're screwed.

And it's also relying on other people. Well, yes. And that's the whole thing, right? You've got to be able to solve the problem yourself. Self-reliant. Now, you know, at some point your business gets bigger and you have to learn how to do a lot of other things. You know, when you go to five people, it's one thing. You go to 10 or 15, it's another challenge, you know, as you learn how to manage and deal with people. But at the same time, if you're not great at your core competency, how are you going to train those people?

Right. How are you going to know what the goals are for the organization and how to communicate to them how to do what you need them to do? Right. You know, and but every entrepreneur goes through that terror.

Right? I've gone through it. It's like, oh, shit. You know? Yeah. Can I do this? Right? Or am I smart enough or good enough or talented enough to do these? The self-doubt. Yeah. I mean, we all have imposter syndrome. I still have imposter syndrome. No way. Oh, hell yeah. You walk into a circumstance, I'm like, and there's named people that names anybody would recognize. Yeah. And I'm like, what the fuck am I doing here? No way. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

All the time, yeah. Who would you be intimidated by? I'm not gonna get name names, but yeah, for sure. But there are people that you are. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Really? And it's not like an Elon Musk or whatever. No, I know. It's just somebody who has domain knowledge. Like if I'm sitting in a meeting and we're discussing artificial intelligence. Yeah. Like I understand artificial intelligence and I've done a lot of reading, so I have a good grasp of it.

But this person has created neural networks and models that, you know, have a billion parameters, things that I wouldn't even know how to start to do. Yeah. I can understand the conversation. Right. The concept. Right. Yeah. But I'm not going to know operationally how to execute on it. Right. That's just scary. It is scary. Because you're afraid that, okay, did I read enough? Right. Because they're living this day to day. Yeah. And I'm never going to catch up and know this data. Sitting down with the Mavs, you know, with Jason Kidd there.

he's forgot more about basketball than I'll ever know. Right. And so you just, you know, it just, but you, you're his boss technically. So yeah, but I, you know, teach you on the side. I don't know. I can read and learn and add the value that I add, you know, for analytics, et cetera, um, whatever it may be. But, um,

Yeah, everybody's going to have that self-doubt. The question is, what business are you in? Because a lot of companies don't even know. Yeah. Like when I got to the NBA, they thought they were in the basketball business. I know. But you changed that whole team around. Well, it's not just a team, right? The NBA. Yeah, the NBA used to think they marketed basketball. Oh, that's true. Yeah. But, you know, I sat there with him. I said, OK, name the last game you went to and tell me what the score was.

Nobody remembers unless it was just a big game. Right. Right. Name your favorite dunk or shot. No one remembers anyone. Right. Now tell me who you were with.

Everybody knows. Everyone remembers that. Do you remember the first game you went to with your parents, your aunt, your uncle, whatever? Yeah. You're going to remember. The emotional part. Yeah, because that's why you go, because it's the one place you can scream and yell. Yeah, and you do. Yeah, and I do, right? But where else? You're not going to see me yell here or there or whatever, but when you go to a game, you feel that energy and everybody knows they're part of the entertainment, right? Because you're yelling defense, defense, defense.

And that ball's in the air for a game winning or losing shot. And everybody's holding their breath. And if it goes through, you're high-fiving and hugging people you've never seen before in your life. That's so true. That's what makes going to a game special, feeling that energy. And they thought it was about, you know, oh, you know, who has the prettiest jump shot? Yeah. Yeah.

You're right. It's all about the emotional part. It's all about the emotional attachment because that's what sports are. And that's what makes sports different than any other business. And I had to explain that to him. It was just like, you know, when Apple, which has the biggest market cap in the world, has a great quarter, they don't throw parades in Cupertino. No, they do not. Right? When the Lakers or Mavericks or whoever win a championship, the whole city goes insane. It's so true. You know, that's unique to sports. And

And you have to recognize what business are you in? Basketball is the platform, but emotion and entertainment is what we sell. So how did you turn it? So you bought the Mavericks, by the way. I mean, by the way, great investment for you, right? Yeah, it's really good. What, 285? You bought it for 285 million and now it's worth like 2.5 billion. I was going to say a lot more than that. How much now is it worth? Like four? I'm not going to sell it, so it doesn't matter. I mean, yeah, you're not going to sell it. But I'm just curious. It turned out to be undervalued, yeah. It still is in my opinion.

I mean, that's pretty amazing though. It's crazy. And you bought it purely on just passion for basketball. I mean, I still play pickup. I can go out before the game starts and just get up shots on my own court, my own arena. When you were a kid, did you ever think that that was ever going to happen? Never in my wildest dreams did it ever cross my mind. It really didn't cross my mind until after I sold my company and had enough money and it was like,

Now what? Oh shit, yeah. Now I can put my money where my mouth is. But you were smart then. Can you explain why? Like, how did you even think? Cause I like, you took, you got, when Yahoo bought broadcast.com, you got it in stock, right? Yes. And you turned, you had to hedge it or something. What does that even mean to get it into cash? So it was a public, you know, when we got sold to Yahoo, we were a public company who paid us in stock.

And because Yahoo also was a public company, you could sell options on it. So I could sell calls, which gave up part of the upside, but allowed me to buy something called puts, which protected my downside. And so I sold calls, bought puts, that's called a hedge. And I did it for my entire position.

And it was, and it, when the whole, you know, bubble burst for the.com era, you know, I actually made more money. And so, yeah, it's been called one of the top 10 trades of all time. Of all time. Yeah. Cause that like changed your entire life. Well, of course, because there were a lot of people who made a lot of money in stock and on paper and just saw it all disappear.

If it wasn't for that, like that little decision point. Yeah, you wouldn't know who I am. I would never know who you were. Like you sold the first one for six million or something. Which is not nothing. Which is great for a 29, 30 year old. Right. But it's not, you know, it's not billions of dollars. And then like you bought this company, you bought the Mavericks from, how did that happen? Ross Perot or something? Yeah, he didn't care about basketball. It was a real estate deal for him. But I was a seasoned ticket holder and somebody connected me and like in less than a month I bought it. I would like to have Jerry Buss leave here.

I'm sure you've been seeing Showtimes. Yep. That's amazing. So much stuff.

And so do you go to all the games? Unless my kids have something. Unless, well, don't the kids also want to go to, but now they're probably, are they as obsessed with it as you are? My son is becoming more and more so. My daughter, my middle daughter likes it. My oldest daughter, it's just, yeah, just social. Yeah. Yeah. Just for the social part. Yeah. That's amazing. So, so, so basically right now it's the, it's the basketball and it's cost plus. Those are the two biggies. Well, cost plus basketball, you know, except for free agency, basketball kind of runs itself. Yeah. Yeah.

Were you at Summer League just now? Yeah. Yeah. So I was there. Yeah. And I do it because I love it. Right. Well, yeah. Why do people go anyway? Like your level? Like, are they just going to see the players and all that stuff? Yeah. Well, it just depends. For me, I just like basketball. Yeah. Yeah. You're a different story altogether. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, you've got to recruit and you've got to identify talent and all that kind of stuff. It's just like hiring programmers or hiring videographers or hiring producers or whatever. But you just like love it so much. Yeah, no, I enjoy it. Yeah. Wow. So what was the other? Okay, wait, I lost what I was going to say to you. Hold on. I think that's basically, well, where were we before I talked about the Summer League, the thing that...

No, not the other thing too. What was the other thing I was going to ask you? Just about entrepreneurial stuff. Just entrepreneurial stuff. I don't even remember what I was going to say. Do you have anything else you want to say? What were we talking about? Entrepreneurial. We were talking about entrepreneur's failure. I mean. I have a question. Sure. Sure. So for the. This is Amir. Yeah. I know. I saw Shark Tank. I got to put that over there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

You talked about these companies not advertising and making margin. That's what you talk about a lot. What's your margin? Forget about the top line. Obviously, with Facebook and Instagram, there's been an opportunity for companies to scale using ads. It depends on how much money you have. The question about spending money for advertising, whether it's search or other things, it depends what type of company you are. I think

For most entrepreneurial companies, particularly startups, that you have to know what sells your product. Now, if you're just trying to get scale and you're selling it direct to consumer, you're probably going to have to advertise unless you find a better way to do it virally. Right. But you have to know what sells your product.

Like with Alyssa's, you know, it's easy, right? Cost plus drugs. It's easy. It's easy. Right. Yeah. You know, we have another company, Wild Earth, which is vegan dog food. It's harder because you have to explain it. Yeah. The education piece. Yeah. So there's an education piece. But the challenge now is because of the changes Apple made to privacy, getting a return on advertising spend ROAS is much more difficult. Yeah. And so you're having to become a lot more innovative in how you sell your products. Yeah.

You know, in streaming products, whatever it is, you've got to find what the most cost effective way to go is. Now, part of the challenge is that learning process. So I'm never a fan of selling, of spending a boatload. I'm a fan of test a lot, test and retest, test and learn because it always evolves. And spending for search engine advertising or Facebook ads, whatever it may be, you

You're competing with everybody in your category. And that's getting the price higher and it's getting the returns lower in a lot of respects. So you've got to understand what the compelling aspect is for people to say yes. Yeah. You know, what is the path of least resistance for you getting someone to say yes? And you don't want to go all in. And the other thing I'll say for startups is I'm not a fan of brand advertising. You're not. No, not even a little bit. You earn your brand and your brand...

um, captures an identity based off of your execution, right? What do you mean to your customers? That is your brand. My, you know, let the customers define your brand. If you're trying to show pretty pictures and people running on the beach and all this, and you're kind of, you know, virtue signaling to your business. Um,

That's typically a waste of money now unless you're Pepsi or coke or whatever and you know And then the other thing that I see a lot of companies make mistakes and they hire a marketing or finance Whatever and they just do MBA 101. Yeah, right This is what I learned in you know in finance or entrepreneurship or my MBA classes So this must be what you do right? No, right context matters in

a lot. You know, what's your competition doing? How do you differentiate yourself? And you always want to focus on your differentiation. Business is about selling two things.

how you're different and why you're the path to least resistance. So the people have a reason to buy. And maybe you can encapsulate that as how do you reduce your customer stress? How about community? Now? I feel like everybody's doing two different things. One is like, they're trying to build a community, right? The other is attaching to a cause. Yeah. Right. Having a mission is all good. Right. And you know, community typically with NFTs, you see that, right? That's what I was like avoiding. Yeah. That's right. But with community, you,

Again, it's got to be organic and it's great to set up a discord server or set up a facebook group And have somebody that you work that works for you or you even I try to do it myself a lot of cases Yeah, um be responsive to everybody because you get to learn about your customers, right? So community is great, right? Right. Um And it should be part of every business that to me that's part of the blocking and tackling right, you know It's like answering your emails or having an info email address, right? That's so

Okay, so that's actually, I mean, that's interesting because I found that's the hardest part for companies to do is build that community, right? Yeah, it takes time, but it takes happy customers because it can work against you too. Yeah, because if your customers are not happy, you're toast. Yeah. Because that community is just going to turn on you so fast. 100%, especially now, you know. So, okay, this is the area, I'm not great at this area, so I'll just, I'll like fake it a little bit here. But like the whole cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, blockchain, NFTs,

So the whole, by the way, I had a lot of money in Voyager also, by the way. Yeah, me too. A lot. So is it gone now? No, I don't think it's gone, no. It's not? You might not get all of it back. So if you had US dollars, USD, you'll get it all back. I will? Yes. So not USDC, but USD. There's two different things. USD was stored in a bank account. USDC is still considered crypto. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Because that's like, I was mortified. Do you know which one you have?

I don't know. I got to check now because I just found out, obviously, a couple of days ago about this. I was mortified. It's brutal. Yeah, it's hard. The whole thing. Because also, it was such hype. It was so hype. They made a mistake. I mean, it's like, look, I've been investing a long time and I've seen companies make mistakes for things that were supposed to be riskless. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, nothing's ever riskless, right? But close enough. Yeah. I mean, I remember I had a bank call me. I had a lot of money in the bank.

And fortunately, they called me and said, this bank's about to go under. And so you better pull your money out now. And so, you know, I was fortunate. But...

Unfortunately, Voyager did a deal with this company called 3AC, Three Arrows Capital, and it looked good on paper, but the company basically lied about their finances. Wow. Yeah, because Voyager is a public company in Toronto. I actually even own stock. I bought stock. So did I. I'm Canadian, too, so I'm from Toronto. Yeah, so I bought stock in the company on the Toronto Exchange, thinking, okay, but when 3AC went bankrupt –

It just had that contagion. But, you know, in reading all the filings, basically what Voyager is saying is, you know, we have the USD is cash in the bank at their bank, right? Right. And so if you have that, you'll get 100% back. The USDC in crypto, it really depends on how much they're able to collect from us.

From this fat one. Yeah. What's that? I have the other one, not the one I'm going to get back. Yeah. The USDC. Yeah. And I had a lot of USDC there too. Yeah. Um, cause it was making eight and a half percent. It was making exactly. Yeah. And so, and this is why I was making eight and a half percent. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

And so hopefully, you know, if what they say in their filing is accurate and I have no reason to believe it's not. And the judge that's dealing with the bankruptcy agrees, then they'll be able to put consumer accounts first to get probably 60, 70 percent of the crypto back.

Oh, really? Yeah. And then what they've said in their filings in public that they're going to try to do is for the other 30% or 40%, because they're bankrupt, the old stock that I own is worthless, right? Right. They'll try to, in the new company, they'll-

recreate it and give stock and tokens to those people to hopefully, if it turns out to be worth anything, make up the delta. Wow. So what do you think? I mean, obviously, you're like very involved. You invest in a lot of this stuff. People like me and probably a lot of more...

I would say a majority of the population don't really understand this whole idea. But then what happens is we get like not pressure, kind of pressure. Yeah, it's like anything else. Everybody's making money. Exactly. Everyone's making all, everyone's like telling me there's like crazy monopoly money. So then I feel like I'm missing out. And then I put a bunch of money in. You got to fight that feeling. Tell me about it. Now you know, yeah.

And so the question is, is there a way to educate people properly? Because you just got to do the work. I mean, I knew you were going to say that. But it's just no shortcuts. I wish there were. This is one area that you're hard. So one difference between, look, stocks are the same way. Yeah. Right? So if you look at your stock portfolio, if you have any tech stocks at all, it's gotten crushed. Everything's getting crushed. Yeah. And it's gotten crushed as much as Bitcoin or Ethereum, right? So you always have to ask yourself, is the company a good company? Or is the value? Because part of the problem with the tech stocks

is their valuations went too high because interest rates were so low. And so people had nowhere else to put their money. So they put it into crypto and they put it into high flyer tech stocks and other things, right? Right. And when interest rates have been going up over the last few months, it's like, okay, well, I can earn two or three or 4%. Why am I going to take the risk on the, on crypto or on these stocks? Right. So I'll just yank it out. And, you know, Amazon is falling, what, 50, 60, 70%, Netflix, 70 or 80%. Yeah. Everything has gotten destroyed.

Even Apple has gone down 30 some percent. And so, you know, there's no way you can predict all of that. You know, it's just doesn't matter who you are. Right. Stocks don't always just go up, even though it feels like it. And it's the same with crypto. But for me with crypto, there's two types of crypto tokens. One is store value, which is really only Bitcoin. And that's kind of like gold. Right.

You know, there's all kinds of narratives that say, well, if you hold gold when there's heavy inflation, the price of gold will go up. Right. Price of gold has gone down during all this inflation. And so that's bullshit. But it's a narrative that gets people to buy. Right. And it's the same with Bitcoin. You know, there's only 21 million going to be made. So if there's inflation, you don't have to worry about it.

That hasn't worked either. But the reality is those store values are just about supply and demand. If there's more people buying than selling, the price goes up. If there's more people selling than buying, the price goes down. Now, good news with both gold and Bitcoin is most people just hold them and wait it out.

That's one kind of crypto. The other kind are just tokens and, you know, like Ethereum and... You have Doge... You guys use Dogecoin? Dogecoin, yeah. Dogecoin is just fun. Dogecoin is like the on-ramp for crypto. Oh, okay. You can use it to buy stuff and everything. Like you can go to the math store and buy tickets and buy whatever. But, you know, there's...

it's, it's like what I've said is just, it's a better lottery ticket than a lottery ticket because when the, once you scratch it, if you don't win on your lottery ticket, it's over at least with Dogecoin, it's got a chance still to go. That has a chance. So like, so how about NFTs? What's the, what's with this NFT? Like,

It's the same thing. You told me about Chris, what's his face? Chris Brown. Chris Brown. Do you see this? He has like 100 million followers, 120 million followers on social media. He made an NFT. Chris Brown, the singer? Yeah. Okay. And he sold like, what they made, how many of these? They sold 300 out of 10.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's like art, right? No, I understand what it is, but I feel like everybody and their dog now is like doing one and having one. Yeah, but it's just like anybody who collected baseball cards. So is it the same? Same thing. Yeah, only a digital version of a collectible. That's it. And so if I buy...

and if you want to see my NFTs, go to lazy.com slash M Cuban. Okay. That's another company I started, right? I was going to ask you about this lazy one also. What is that? It's just a way you just go to lazy.com, set up an account, connect your wallets. And it's an easy way, you know, to put in your, um,

Instagram profile or at the bottom of an email, check out my NFTs, lazy.com slash mcuban. Okay. I'm going to check them out. Yeah. So if you have NFTs in your wallet, it's a really easy thing to do. Yeah. But NFTs, you know, they're like any other collectible art, right? What makes a Picasso worth all that money? Sure.

True, but at least I'll have a Picasso. If I were to buy a print of the Picasso, it doesn't cost me anything. It costs me like $10, $20. Well, yeah, it's the same thing, right? But there are certain prints of things that cost you a lot. True. But it's online. Who cares? Wouldn't I rather have it on my wall? Well, think about it this way. If you run out of space

On your phone. Yes. And you have to delete pictures. Yes. How painful is that? I don't like it. It's painful. Yes. Right. Oh, there's my baby. There's this. Right. There's value just because it's digital doesn't mean there's not value. True. And if it's art from somebody that you respect or like, and you know, you can, you can have it show up on your screensaver, on your laptop, on your PC, on your phone. So, you know, it's just a collectible.

And the fact that it's digital doesn't make it any more or less valuable. It makes it easier to buy and sell, faster to buy and sell, but it comes down to supply and demand. You know, if nobody cares about Picasso, that Picasso is going down in value. Like, are you buying, you know how Snoop bought some area in Metaverse and the web first? No, I think that's a joke, yeah. What is this? You know, in the Metaverse, you know, if you can get people to go there, you know,

And that's a place to, you know, congregate and hang out with your avatar. And I look at... Do you understand why it's so complicated? Yeah, I get it. You know, in this second life and other places like that have been around forever. It's just that the technology is advanced. Yeah. But the idea of, you know, buying digital real estate in the metaverse and thinking it's going to appreciate for some reason other than just, you know, convincing somebody else to buy it.

Yeah, I'm not sold on that. So you're not doing that. So what's the next wave? Like what's the next thing we should look for? Well, it'll be crypto. Yeah. There's artificial intelligence, but that's way too complicated. That's a whole nother beast. But... Well, that's all happening. Like everything is... Yeah, for sure. AI is driving a lot. But...

And that's one of the things you're really big in. You're right. You're investing a ton in it. Yeah, because I've got to know it for my companies. But with crypto, it comes down to utility. So like with the Dallas Mavericks, if you go to a Mavs game and you scan your ticket before the end of the first quarter, for every game, we create a unique NFT. And you get it for free. Wow.

You don't have to buy it. You get it for free. And if you go to mass collectibles.com, um, you can see what we have there. And if once you've scanned your ticket in, you go to mass collectibles, it'll be there waiting for you. You don't have to create a wall or do all this other stuff and you can buy them and trade them and sell them or, you know, whatever. Um,

But whoever goes to the most games or collects the most, you know, we'll give you free tickets to a preseason game, right? And we don't say in advance what we're going to give you, right? We just try to reward you based off of what we see in the market and all that. So sometimes, like in this case, an NFT is a reflection of something you've done. And in our case with the Mavs, you've gone to a game and we want to reward that. And so, you know, by have you ever had the biggest collection? I think we sent them a special jacket.

You know, and just stuff like that. But we don't say buy this so you can get a jacket. We say, you know, this tells us you're fandom because you're going to games. Right. Because that's the behavior we want to reward more than anything. Exactly. Going to games and even watching a game. You know, so that's one element. And then, you know, there's other utility. It really comes down to crypto will start taking off again when you can use it for some level of utility. Right. You know, when iPhones first came out, people didn't think, okay,

Yeah, no way. Exactly. You know, they didn't think Instagram. Nope. But when those came out, you start seeing, oh, I can use my phone for a whole lot more than just taking... TikTok or... Yeah. You know, I can use it for a whole lot more than just taking pictures and making phone calls. Right. You know, or going on the internet. And so...

That's an example of utility where there was an application that was so compelling, people needed that platform to use it. It was just like streaming. When we started streaming in 1995, if you wanted to listen to the Chicago Cubs and you were in Dallas, the only way you can get those games was by getting a PC,

You know, having to motive all it was a pain in the ass. Absolutely. Right. But people went through it because if you're a Cubs fan and you're at work, it was the only way. Right. And it'll be the same with crypto. So if there is an application that, you know, the only way I can do this application, then that's what it's going to take. And when that happens, you'll see crypto go boom again. Wow. Well, hopefully sooner.

than later right kidding right like no kidding you know yeah from your mouth to God's ears and then one other thing about well actually I wanted to ask you this only because I was curious when I was like doing all this research how are you able to get into Indiana without finishing high school because I was taking college I was taking college classes so don't you need to have like a college a high school you

you know, diploma? when I dropped out, I went to the University of Pittsburgh, took classes there and they let me take those classes and apply it. That's how you did it. That's how I did it. And then when I got to Indiana, I snuck into a, um, graduate level statistics class, got an A in it, um, and they thought I was in the MBA program when I was 18. Oh, that's. And I just kept on taking MBA classes and,

I was even tutoring people. It was insane. Oh my God. That is so cute. You're so sly. What's your favorite book that you, well, Fountainhead, right? Okay. That wasn't easy. I shouldn't have said that. Well, I shouldn't, I should pretend. And that doesn't mean like I'm a big Ayn Rand advocate or anything. I just like Howard work. Yeah. That's the whole thing, right? Howard work is just a big old fuck you guy. Right. I love him. Yeah. So that, that's why. That's right. Okay. Other than, other than that, what's like your favorite business book besides yours? Yeah. How to win a sport of business. My little plug in there. Um,

It's like 65 pages. Yeah, it's easy to read. It's more like a pamphlet than a book. Yeah, I want it to be really easy to read and motivating. I don't know, probably always the last book I read, typically. Signal and Noise, which is a book about statistics, was good. Fun. The Master Algorithm, which is about AI, was good. Yeah.

What's your favorite movie? Do you watch movies? Yeah. Yeah. Like I just finished Stranger Things. You did. Okay. If I'm on the Peloton and my kids were watching it. Did you like it? Yeah. I liked it actually. Yeah. I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did. Yeah. They're bringing back all these great songs from the past. Yeah. I know. I love that song. Metallica. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Other than that, a favorite. That's a TV show. What's your favorite? Movie, movie, movie. I like stupid ass movies. Like what? Good Burger. Good Burger.

Good Burger? Yeah. Okay. Do you know what it is? No, but it sounds crazy. I'm a dude, you're a dude, she's a dude, we're all dudes. Is it like a recent movie? No, it's old. Okay. No, it's a while.

Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, the Goonies, um, old school, old school type stuff. Like John Hughes, 16 candles. Yes. You know, I mean, I've top gun new one was good. The new one was really good. So good. Um, I just saw the new Elvis. It was okay. I was going to go take my kid to that one. Yeah. My kids liked it, but it was, it wasn't great, but it was okay. I heard the guy that did a great job. It was amazing. Yeah. He was incredible. Yeah. Um,

Yeah. Nothing recent. Like it's just, Oh, that's incredible. I need to see it five times. Like I knew Batman was good. Oh, I didn't like it. Yeah. It was like kind of dark. It was really dark, but that was long. It was really long too. Yeah. So, okay. So who's your favorite superhero? Would that be Batman? Um,

Batman or Iron Man. Iron Man's my favorite. Okay. I think that's basically all. I don't know what else I can ask you. My God, it's been like for how long has it been? It's been an hour. Oh my God. I think I've like went way over my time limit with you. That's okay. It was cool. You were like amazing. I have nothing. By the way, everyone go check out Cost Plus. It's

It really is. Tell them because... Yeah, go check out costplusdrugs.com. If you want to find the other companies I'm invested in, go to markcuban.com. If you have a few minutes. Yeah, right? God. And buy those Alyssa cookies because they're delicious. If you go to markcuban.com, you'll see the link. And I have to say mush, mush, mush, whatever. Mush is really good too. Because I love Ashley. I love Ashley. Yeah, she's amazing. So you have to kind of plug her. Yeah, she's a force of nature. Amazing. And she's so smart and she's...

Great. I know you can also follow Mark, of course, on... MQbin. All the social media, I'm MQbin. And email him because obviously he's going to answer you. I'm not giving out my email again. Exactly. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jen. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Habits and Hustle, time to get it rolling. Stay up on the grind, don't stop, keep it going. Habits and Hustle, from nothing into something. All out, hosted by Jennifer Cohen. Visionaries, tune in, you can get to know them. Be inspired, this is your moment. Excuses, we ain't having that. The Habits and Hustle podcast, powered by Habit Nest.