Can Billionaires Save Us? with Mark Cuban

Summary

Smart Girl Dumb Questions: Can Billionaires Save Us? with Mark Cuban
Hosted by Nayeema Raza
Release Date: February 28, 2025

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Introduction

In the inaugural episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, host Nayeema Raza engages in a compelling conversation with Mark Cuban, one of America’s most renowned entrepreneurs and owners of the Dallas Mavericks. The episode, titled "Can Billionaires Save Us?", delves into the intricate relationship society has with billionaires, exploring whether individuals with immense wealth can address significant social issues like healthcare, education, and oversight.

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The Evolution of Wealth: From First Million to Billionaire

Raza begins by exploring how Mark Cuban's life transformed with his financial milestones. Starting from his first substantial earnings:

• First Earnings and Personal Growth
  "When we sold and I got up past a million after taxes and everything, oh, I was just thinking, I'm just a badass." [02:42]
  Cuban reflects on his journey from earning his first million to becoming a billionaire, emphasizing the personal confidence that accompanies financial success.

• Realizations Beyond Wealth
  "Simply because I got to see other people more than myself." [05:06]
  As Cuban accumulated wealth, his focus shifted from personal gain to the broader impact his endeavors had on others, particularly highlighted through his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks.

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Billionaires and the Healthcare Conundrum

A significant portion of the conversation centers around the U.S. healthcare system and Cuban’s initiatives to disrupt it.

• The Broken Healthcare System
  "The way it is right now needs to be fucked up." [08:22]
  Cuban candidly critiques the existing healthcare framework, pointing out its inefficiencies and the misalignment of interests among patients, providers, and insurers.

• Introducing CostPlusDrugs.com
  "If you go to costplusdrugs.com and we don't carry every drug... and mark it up 15%." [12:06]
  He introduces his venture, CostPlusDrugs.com, which aims to increase transparency in pharmaceutical pricing by offering medications at significantly reduced costs compared to traditional pharmacies.

• Eliminating Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs)
  "Pharmacy benefit manager is they work with insurance companies or either own or are owned by insurance companies... they're always going to find a way to get paid." [15:58]
  Cuban explains how PBMs complicate drug pricing, adding layers of fees and lack of transparency, which his company seeks to eliminate.

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Capitalism: The Double-Edged Sword

Cuban discusses the role of capitalism in both creating and potentially solving societal issues.

• Capitalism’s Flaws and Strengths
  "If capitalism broke healthcare, then capitalism can fix it." [16:42]
  He acknowledges that while capitalism has its shortcomings, especially in sectors like healthcare, the same system holds the potential for innovative solutions through market-based approaches.

• The Importance of Transparency
  "The whole point is, can you compete with them through transparency? And the answer is yes." [19:43]
  Transparency emerges as a recurring theme, with Cuban advocating for open pricing and direct contracting as means to foster competition and fairness in the market.

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The NBA Model: A Lesson in Balancing Capitalism and Fair Play

Raza shifts the conversation to sports, particularly the NBA, as a model that blends capitalist principles with mechanisms ensuring fairness.

• NBA’s Salary Caps and Draft System
  "Why? Because that was the year for Back to the Future... we're going single payer." [32:36]
  The discussion highlights how the NBA employs salary caps, luxury taxes, and draft mechanisms to maintain competitive balance among teams, preventing wealthier franchises from dominating perpetually.

• Comparing NBA to Broader Systems
  "There's no equal opportunity for everybody... but there is that opportunity there, I think." [35:10]
  Cuban contrasts the NBA's structured fairness with broader societal systems, pondering how such models could inform public policies to create more equitable opportunities.

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Billionaires in Politics and Society

The episode delves into the influence of billionaires in politics and public perception.

• Billionaires Running for Office
  "I think it's irrelevant." [50:09]
  When asked about billionaires running for political office, Cuban expresses a nuanced view, emphasizing individual merit over class-based judgments.

• Public Accountability and Perception
  "Hate the player? Hate the game, not the player." [51:36]
  He advocates for evaluating individuals based on their actions rather than condemning an entire class, promoting a more balanced perspective on wealth and influence.

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Personal Anecdotes and Light-Hearted Moments

Despite the heavy topics, the conversation is interspersed with personal stories and humor, showcasing Cuban's relatable side.

• Overcoming Phobias
  "When you see a bear episode... I have no idea why they're doing it." [55:12]
  Cuban shares his lifelong fear of heights, adding a personal touch to the dialogue.

• Acting Ventures
  "I love doing the acting... It was so much fun." [49:12]
  He recounts his experiences acting in The Simpsons and Sharknado, highlighting his playful engagement with popular culture.

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Concluding Reflections

As the episode wraps up, Raza and Cuban reflect on the broader implications of wealth and responsibility.

• The Role of Entrepreneurs
  "65% of new jobs come from small businesses. Innovation comes from those people." [35:53]
  Cuban underscores the pivotal role entrepreneurs play in driving economic growth and innovation, emphasizing grassroots impact over top-down solutions.

• Future of Healthcare and Market Systems
  "We can talk about billionaires, but you also have to talk about politicians... how they keep billionaires in check." [39:30]
  The dialogue concludes with thoughts on balancing entrepreneurial initiatives with political reforms to create sustainable and equitable systems.

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Key Takeaways

1. Entrepreneurial Impact: Billionaires like Mark Cuban can drive significant change in sectors like healthcare by introducing transparent, market-based solutions.
2. Capitalism’s Potential: While capitalism has inherent flaws, especially in opaque industries, it also holds the potential for innovative disruptions when combined with transparency and competition.
3. Balancing Power: Models like the NBA demonstrate how structured fairness can coexist with capitalist principles, offering lessons for broader societal systems.
4. Personal Responsibility: Wealthy individuals have the capacity and, arguably, the responsibility to address societal issues, leveraging their resources for the greater good.
5. Public Perception: It’s essential to evaluate individuals based on their actions rather than their wealth, promoting a more nuanced understanding of influence and responsibility.

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Notable Quotes

• "Life is half random." – Mark Cuban [29:27]
• "Pharmacy benefit manager... they're always going to find a way to get paid." – Mark Cuban [15:58]
• "Hate the player? Hate the game, not the player." – Mark Cuban [51:36]
• "65% of new jobs come from small businesses. Innovation comes from those people." – Mark Cuban [35:53]

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Conclusion

In this thought-provoking episode, Nayeema Raza and Mark Cuban dissect the complex role of billionaires in modern society. Through candid discussions and personal stories, they explore whether immense wealth can be harnessed to rectify systemic issues, particularly in healthcare. The conversation underscores the delicate balance between entrepreneurial freedom and societal responsibility, offering listeners a nuanced perspective on capitalism and the potential for positive change driven by those at the pinnacle of economic success.

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For more insightful conversations and explorations of modern life's complexities, subscribe to Smart Girl Dumb Questions wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Nae Ma Raza]

You have, I think, really like, big first guest energy.

[Mark Cuban]

I do, yeah. Okay.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And you have big curiosity, which is what the show is all about. Everybody's so sure, Mark all around me.

[Mark Cuban]

So sure.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah. I'm surrounded by sure people. I'm surrounded. And I feel like, am I a moron? Because, like, I'm not sure what the answer is. A lot of times that's probably true that I'm a moron. I could change the name of the show.

[Mark Cuban]

You're right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Smart Girl, dumb questions. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Smart Girl Dumb Questions. I'm Nae Ma Raza, your smart girl with the dumb dumb questions. And today for my first episode, I wanted to dig into our love hate relationship with billionaires. These people that I think we really admire for the businesses they've built and the ideas they've had in some way look up to, but also we envy them. We sometimes hate them. We think they have too much power in our society. And I wanted to ask the dumb question, can billionaires save us? Can they address these big social issues that we haven't been able to figure out elsewhere like healthcare, education or oversight? And I know it's a crazy question to ask at a time where we have such division and people have pretty polarized views on things like Elon Musk and Doge or United Healthcare and Luigi. But I decided to ask the question, kind of open minded and earnest way to see if the system is somehow producing people who are uniquely suited to address these big challenges. So I went out to Dallas, Texas to talk to Mark Cuban, who I think is kind of America's most beloved and fun rich dude.

You know, he's very famous from shark tanks.

You probably know him from there. He also is these days really busy with a healthcare company called costplusdrugs.com but what I think is so interesting about him is that he's fresh off the heels from this Kamala Harris campaign that he was on the trail for. And he also sold the majority of the NBA team he loves so much, the Dallas Mavericks RIP Luca to a family of Trump supporters. I just think he's kind of independent thinking and open minded. So I wanted to know from Mark, can billionaires save us? Can they literally save our lives when it comes to healthcare? But also when I was sitting down with him, I needed to know, what is it like to be rich? What's it like to have a million dollars and $100 million and a billion dollars? How much money is too much money? I also needed to know, why is he still Working on health care, of all things. And why does he think, if capitalism broke health care, capitalism can fix it at all? Here's my conversation with Mark Cuban.

Okay, so here's a dumb question. How does your life change from, like, from the first check you got? How much was that? When you sold your first Microsoft?

[Mark Cuban]

We made $6 million. Came in 2 million. I paid a bunch million to employees, 2 million to another investor, and 2 million to me.

[Nae Ma Raza]

2 million to you. And you. I mean, you didn't grow up rich.

[Mark Cuban]

No, no, no. My dad did upholstery on cars.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Okay, so I want to know, how does your life change when you get your first million, your first 100 million, and your first billion?

[Mark Cuban]

That's actually a really good question because, you know, I was putting money in the bank, and I remember one time I sat with my dad and I told him I had $100,000 in the bank, and he started crying.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, you know, he was so proud.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. And then when we sold and I got up past a million after taxes and everything, oh, I was just thinking, I'm just a badass. Right. I would go into around Dallas thinking, I'm richer than you. I'm richer than you. Right. Just being an idiot, you know, just.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You still think that? Because you're gonna think that, like, no. You're gonna have no time for other thoughts if you.

[Mark Cuban]

It's just like, you know.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But you had that in your head.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, it was just like. Because it was like, this was an accomplishment, you know? Like I said, seven years without a vacation. That was a lot. And so I was like, okay, now I'm gonna have fun. I bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like, a lifetime. And you still have that?

[Mark Cuban]

I gave it to my dad. My dad passed, and I gave it to a friend.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I'm sorry about your dad.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, it's been a few. But literally, it was a lifetime pass in American Airlines, and it cost me $125,000, and me and anybody I wanted to take could fly anywhere. American flew for the rest of my life.

[Nae Ma Raza]

First class.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. What?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Flagship First.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know what they call it.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I don't even know. You haven't been in a commercial flight.

[Mark Cuban]

It's been a year. I started investing in stocks. I was killing it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

I mean, just destroying it. So my net worth kept on going up, and so I moved to. Took acting classes just to meet girls. Lived on Manhattan beach with, like, two flight attendants.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You lived in Manhattan beach with two flight attendants?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, yes, I did.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So 1 million, you start.

[Mark Cuban]

I'm just having fun.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Having fun.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. Just partying. And then I was under 100 million. And then we sold Broadcast.com and that's when I got to the billion and that's when I bought the Mavs.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So you never experienced 100 million?

[Mark Cuban]

Never. Really?

[Nae Ma Raza]

You just made the leap?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. Hopefully just 100 million again. Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So first hundred thousand, you make your dad cry.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

First million, you. You have fun and tell and think about how much richer you are than everyone else.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. I was 30 years old and it was like I was the ultimate tech bro.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Way before tech bros were tech bros. And then the.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And then the billion, you buy a sports team.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And then like at 5 billion, you sell part of it for, like, more billions for more billions than you bought it for. Okay, we're going to get to all that. And then. Do you think it made you more generous as you got richer?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, for sure. Simply because I got to see other people more than myself.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Say more. What do you mean by that?

[Mark Cuban]

Because, you know, when I'm building a company, it's just tunnel vision. It's not so much that you want. It wasn't like there was a goal to, you know, have this, this, and this. Cause it wasn't about stuff. But I was just into the business, trying to make it work because. And you know, the fact that it was a streaming industry, and I had no doubt in my mind that it was going to change everything.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, I remember sitting. Sitting in front of a meeting in our first office, and we had maybe 20 people. And I remember telling the first 20 some employees, and we all took a picture. Either this is going to fail miserably or this is going to be worth more than $5 billion. And we're going to change the world. We're going to change how people communicate. We're going to change how people consume content. When that's going on, it's exciting.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, and that's the mission. And once I got past that and bought the Mavs, then like with the Mavs, I owned the team, but the fans really owned the team.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, I was in control of decisions and finances, but just the impact that it would have on people just shocked me. You know, sports is not like any other industry. Nobody is going to anybody at Google or OpenAI or wherever saying, hey, you know, can I get a Google T shirt to bury my son who was a huge fan, you know, and died of cancer. But that happens every day in sports. Just seeing that and just seeing how kids in particular, how their eyes lit up when they'd come to a game and have fun. And how no matter how screwed up your life may be, you know, if you come to a Mavs game, in this case, that ball's in the air, the game is tied, everybody's screaming and yelling. Everybody holds their collective breath. And that only happens with sports. And just being able to see the impact and then going out into the community and just seeing. And so back to your question. That became more fun than just trying to make more money. Yeah, that became more personally impactful to me.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Did you ever think that you would still be working at this point?

[Mark Cuban]

I bought a book, actually. It was called how to Retire by the age of 35.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Mark Cuban]

And the whole idea was that you save up enough money and live like a student, which was cool, right? I was gonna. So after I sold my first ramen noodles. Yeah. And that was. Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Basically it. Right. And I don't. Cause obviously, you see the way I dress. I drive a Kia. Like, you know, I do have a plane.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I drive a Kia. I do have a plane.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. But, you know, I don't want all of a sudden people to say, well, you got a plane, so don't. You know, I wanted to. And just party like a madman. But that was so.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Retiring then, because to me, like, the mission, you know, trying to make money was more about trying to capture as much of my own time as I could. Because, like my dad used to say, you know, you can't. You know, you. You don't own your own time. You can't get it back. And. And so that's all I wanted to do, was being able to do what I wanted. But now it's just like, I only do what I like, you know? And so it's not. If I don't like it, it's not really work.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So, you know, you're not a billionaire who's moved to a private island. Like, you've not cut yourself off. Instead, you have found a new mission to fuck up healthcare.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Fuck up healthcare.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But, Mark, HEALTHCARE is already so fucked up.

[Mark Cuban]

Well, it needs to be reverse fucked.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, you're gonna reverse? I don't think I know that position, but yes. Okay. Got it. So you're gonna. Un. Fuck it up. Fuck it up.

[Mark Cuban]

Un. Fuck it up. Reverse.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Fuck it up.

[Mark Cuban]

The way it is right now needs to be fucked up.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Which is exciting, because every interview you go to, people ask you if you're gonna be president, are you gonna be President. You wanna run for president?

Got it out of the way.

But I feel like if you can un. Fuck up healthcare, reverse healthcare, you can be king.

[Mark Cuban]

Nobody likes healthcare the way it is right now. Everybody appreciates their doctor, everybody appreciates the care that they can get. But in particular the economics of it are just a mess.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's insane. My parents were older when I was born, so my dad was in his 50s. My mom is in her 40s and so I spent a lot of my time in the healthcare system and like with that, you know, for them. Really?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh yeah. They were older.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, for them. Yeah. And fighting with insurers. Like my mom had a shoulder surgery and she was supposed to go to acute rehab and the insurance, her private insurance, denied the, you know, kind of shoulder surgery. Plates and screws. It's terrible. Like I had an ACL surgery this year, but I was crying. My mom had this like much harder surgery and she was totally tough. Cause she's had a kid, so she's like, yeah, right. She was like, if you have a kid then you'll know what pain really is.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, exactly.

[Nae Ma Raza]

My mom uses every opportunity to like manipulate me to have a child. I'm like, okay, thanks mom. So. But you're gonna reverse. Fuck healthcare. So healthcare. So I was just at the doctor the other day and I was thinking, this is wild because I kind of know what I'm paying for this. I kind of know through my co. Pay, my deductible, my max. And the doctor has no idea if she's gonna get paid for this or what she's gonna get paid for this. And I thought like, if as a shark tank, you know, put your shark tank hat on, I know you're retired from that, but like you would not wanna be in her bit in the doctor's business.

[Mark Cuban]

I mean, I'd rather the doctors at least are going to get paid unless they just take a walk in. In. But I mean, think about this. You have a deductible. If you don't pay your deductible, who loses?

[Nae Ma Raza]

The insurer? The doctor. The doctor.

[Mark Cuban]

The hospital. The doctor. Right. The provider.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Because they will say, oh, it's billed this much and then they become like a debt collector. Basically.

[Mark Cuban]

Basically. And that's part of the fucked upness of the healthcare system. Because the plan from your former employer set up the deductible. Right. But if something happens and you can't pay your deductible, if it's the hospital, the hospital takes that risk and they're the ones that are screwed. Not the insurer, not the insurance company. They love high deductible plans because it's not their risk at all. And then on the flip side, the insurance companies that are supposed to pay the hospitals. Right. They do contracts. You would think an insurance company can negotiate a fee to pay the hospital that would be less because of their scale than just you or I walking into the hospital to get a broken arm set or get a nice if for your next surgery. If you don't have insurance, I hope.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Not to have it.

[Mark Cuban]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, right. Yeah. Next time you wipe out skiing. Yeah, right. It's cheaper if you just walk in and ask cash pay first.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Do you have health insurance?

[Mark Cuban]

I do, but I'm creating ourselves. It's a completely different program. It's not through an insurance company, but.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You have insurance because you're an employee of Mark Cuban companies.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. But starting January 1st, we created our own program.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh.

[Mark Cuban]

So basically what I said was, it's cheaper for me. Like if one of my kids, my daughter, broke her hand and to take her to the emergency room. I didn't tell them my insurance company. I just said, I want the cash price and it was less than my deductible.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Did you know what the insurance price was going to be?

[Mark Cuban]

No, because. But I already knew. I already knew that this was going to be cheaper because it's just cheaper.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's always cheaper to sell. So I know some rich people who don't have health insurance for this reason.

[Mark Cuban]

They can just pay out of their own pockets.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, but that's a very high risk. Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Very few people. Right?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Very few people. Very few people. Okay, so let's back up. So the way that you have chosen to unfuck or reverse.

[Mark Cuban]

Starting spot.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Start the starting spot.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, the initial oiling.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So.

[Mark Cuban]

Costplusdrugs.com so the idea is basically, you don't know. You know, when you get a prescription from your doctor, they say, here's your prescription. You need what? Yada, yada, yada. And the next question they ask you isn't, can you afford it? This is what it's going to cost. It's what pharmacy do you use? That's it. And then if you go to the pharmacy, you may or may not know what your deductible is or your co pay or your coinsurance. And for a lot of people, they go and realize they can't afford it. And when you look at the actual cost of the drugs, before we got into the business, the markups were insane, just insane.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like what?

[Mark Cuban]

Like thousands of percent.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Thousands.

[Mark Cuban]

Like there's a drug called imatinib. Matinib is for people with chronic mikemia. Whatever. Cml. If you just walked into a CVS as an example back, you know, we started three years ago, it'd probably be about $2,000.

[Nae Ma Raza]

For self pay.

[Mark Cuban]

For self pay, $2,000. Okay, buy from us now our price is probably $21.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And at CVS right now, how much.

[Mark Cuban]

Right now is probably $300.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Are you guys driving down the prices?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, yeah, for sure. We've served millions of people and it's like, let's check cost plus drugs first. So what we do is you go to costplusdrugs.com and we don't carry every drug. We carry about 2,500. Okay. And you put in the name of the medication imatinib. And what comes up first is our actual cost. And then we mark it up 15%. Because I wanted everybody to see that this is a fair markup. This is how we pay our bills. Right. It's not exorbitant, but whatever that price comes out to.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But this is not a nonprofit. The 15%.

[Mark Cuban]

No, we're trying to make money. Yeah. Because I want to keep on growing.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You are to me like the uber capitalist. You know, you made billions of dollars. You're a rags to riches story, which America loves. You proselytize this on Shark Tank. You know, everybody can do this. So you are to me, just like such a capitalist, but you're also a good guy.

[Mark Cuban]

You could be compassionate and be a capitalist. They're not mutually exclusive.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, but the definition of capitalism is like two things, right? Like private actors own the means of production and you're driven by profit motive. This is driven by profit motive, but not to the max.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, well, exactly right. You know, you can make more money by accomplishing more and helping people more. That's why people buy from you. You know, if you're fair and you're honest and you make it affordable, you have a whole lot more customers.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And you think that's the way to unfuck the system. Because a lot of people like Bernie Sanders would say, go to a single payer system, but let's talk about that.

[Mark Cuban]

Right? So the question isn't single payer or not. The question is how do you get there and what are the potential downsides? If the government comes walking in to your doctor and Bernie Sanders says, this is all we're paying you, that doctor might say, yeah, no, I'm not going to get involved. If they go to a hospital and say the same thing. They might say, okay, I'll negotiate with you. And the reason it's not a fair negotiation and it benefits the hospitals, the providers, is because there's no transparency. And it's not even transparency in terms of pricing, but more transparency and costs. Like I've talked to hospital after hospital after hospital, including, you know, just the other day, and I said, do you know what your costs are for any particular procedure?

[Nae Ma Raza]

The hospital doesn't know what it's costing?

[Mark Cuban]

No idea.

[Nae Ma Raza]

How does a hospital not know?

[Mark Cuban]

They know what their total costs are and what the revenues have to get to. And that's part of the problem. If you believe like I do that healthcare is a right, then the question isn't should we have single payer? The question is how do we get there in a way that works for all the interested parties, the patient, the providers and the payers. Right. The government. And so it has to be a market based system. It has to be an efficient market based system. Right now healthcare is a market based system, but there's no efficiency and there's no transparency.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's completely opaque and it's like all these middlemen. It's like what cost? Plus the way you guys are doing is you're cutting out these pharmacy benefit managers.

[Mark Cuban]

Exactly.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So explain what a PBM is without losing people.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. Pharmacy benefit manager is they work with insurance companies or either own or are owned by insurance companies. And they go to manufacturers, the pharmaceutical manufacturers, and negotiate pricing. And back in the day they used to just pass through whatever benefits they got. Now they don't just pass through all the costs and in addition to that they create all these other incremental fees that they charge to everybody. So that just distorts everything. But more importantly, they're not the least but transparent.

[Nae Ma Raza]

They take kickbacks, basically everything. Like they're like rebates, whatever it is.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. They're always going to find a way to get paid.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And you don't know what those numbers are. So what we're saying is let's be completely transparent.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So if capitalism broke health care, can capitalism fix health care?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, that's a great question. Right. And the answer is yes. It's not all that hard. This has been the easiest industry to disrupt I've ever been involved with.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Really?

[Mark Cuban]

It's not even close. Now going back to my company, I said, this system's fucked up.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. There's no purpose for me to use a pharmacy benefit manager, you know, if just to process our claims. I'll use something called a tpa.

[Nae Ma Raza]

This is you as an employer.

[Mark Cuban]

Me as an employer for hundreds of whatever people and their families. So you've got a thing called a TPA that processes the claims.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Mark Cuban]

We just hired a tpa. Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Mark Cuban]

I self insured. So I didn't need an insurance company. I needed a reinsurance company.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Explain what self insured is.

[Mark Cuban]

Just like you said, rich people that don't buy health insurance.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Rather a self insured company. Rather than working with an insurance company to take on the financial risk if, you know, if your total cost for care gets too high, takes on that risk themselves.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So like, so like a big company, like Hasbro or something? I don't even. Is it a big company? Google. Yeah, Google, Apple.

[Mark Cuban]

Every big company. Self insurance insurance.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So they basically. So when they're contracting with like cigna, Cigna isn't taking the risk for all of those claims. The company is saying, I'll take all that I'll take. But then what is? Cigna processes them.

[Mark Cuban]

All Cigna is doing is basically putting together a network of hospitals and doctors.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And giving people a card. And then the company actually pays that.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. So I said, if I'm paying it anyways.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Why do I need you? I'm going to go right to the hospitals and I'm going to contract directly.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So you're cutting out the middlemen.

[Mark Cuban]

Cutting out the middlemen. But like we published our price list for Cost plus drugs and that changed all the pricing of pharmaceuticals. On the healthcare side, we're doing something called direct contracting, where we're contracting with the hospitals, but we're gonna publish the contracts. So.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But this is hyperlocal, Right. Like, you couldn't do this if you had a big national bid. You would do it.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And you would just. But it takes so much. It's like, I hate admin, Mark, you're telling me like you would call, you would hire somebody who loves admin to like go negotiate this with every Hopkins?

[Mark Cuban]

That's exactly what we're doing. And I'm going out talking to all.

[Nae Ma Raza]

The hospitals and it's cheaper. Have you saved money?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Yes.

[Nae Ma Raza]

What do you do with your save? How much money you save?

[Mark Cuban]

20 to 40%, depending on the week.

[Nae Ma Raza]

That's why you're so rich, because you keep finding ways to save money. And the rest of.

[Mark Cuban]

Just ask why. Always ask why. That's the curiosity. Like people like when we started Cost plus Drugs. Mark, you're a moron. Right? Everybody's tried to change it. You can't change it. People in the industry, you can't change it.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It could you have changed it. If you weren't a billionaire, it would.

[Mark Cuban]

Be a lot harder.

[Nae Ma Raza]

How much money you have to put into the thing?

[Mark Cuban]

A lot.

[Nae Ma Raza]

A lot. You're not going to tell me?

[Mark Cuban]

I'm not going to tell you like.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Because like was it like a lot party money or was it like buy a plane money?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, more.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh yeah, okay.

[Mark Cuban]

Exactly. It's a lot of money money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So, you know, I always think like, can billionaires save us? It's like in certain industries they kind of have to. Certain industries, like not even that they have to.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. It's just who has the time and is willing to put in the focus. Because I want this to be so fucking big. Right. That then I can just walk in and say, okay, we're going single pair.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Because you can scale the thing. And then you can so.

[Mark Cuban]

Because all that's missing is transparency.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And so the whole point is, can you compete with them through transparency? And the answer is yes, because I can go to all these self insured companies and I can go to their CEOs and I can say to the CEO, you have 100,000 lives that you're responsible for.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Why in America are is our health insurance through our employer? Like that's like a World War II word of thought.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like I don't know the story, but I. But it's kind of weird, right?

[Mark Cuban]

It isn't. It isn't. Right. When there's price controls and stuff and you wanted to try to give people more.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Then healthcare makes perfect sense because that's the scariest thing for a family.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

So on that end it makes sense. And then if you're competing for employees, you know, because the flip side is you have to go out and negotiate your own, you know, your own career.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But. Or it used to be much easier.

[Mark Cuban]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like you go see a doctor and it was.

[Mark Cuban]

And they would just work it out.

[Nae Ma Raza]

X dollars. Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. And so in doing what we're doing for my companies, it's like I want to make it like 1955.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You want to make it like 1955.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. Why? Because that was the year for Back to the Future. So what I do is we go to a hospital and we say right now you're losing money in your contract with the insurance company because they're not paying their bills. They're doing denials. Right. They're doing all the, playing all these games, sitting high deductibles and you guys lose money as a result.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Instead of all that mishigas. Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

What I'm going to do is I'm going to pay you cash and I'm going to pay you right up front. There'll be no denials.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Okay.

[Mark Cuban]

No prias at all. We're going to trust the doctor until you give us a reason not to. There'll be no employee deductibles, so I'll be responsible for paying 100% of it. And in exchange, I want pricing at about 120% of Medicare.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Mark Cuban]

Which is fair for me and should allow them to make money.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Is this your new business? Are you going to get into the insurance market?

[Mark Cuban]

No, I just. I don't even want to make it. I want insurance to go away. Self insured employers are already in a position to dictate pricing. If they're educated enough on how to dictate pricing for pharmaceutical, pharmaceuticals and for healthcare. They just haven't done it, you know, and they're.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Isn't it huge? Are they wasting money right now?

[Mark Cuban]

Yes, they're wasting a boatload of money.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You know, make sure they heard that.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, yeah, that's. But they haven't been educated on it because, you know, you're CEO of your company and you know. You know. Right. Yeah. So, you know, podcast industry, you're living and learning a podcast industry. And if once you get up to 100 employees or whatever. Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Soon.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, hopefully tomorrow. Right. But you're not going to immediately. Exactly.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And your investment and your big cost plus drugs.com advertisement on my podcast.

[Mark Cuban]

Always. Always. Fortunately, we haven't had to spend a nickel on advertising.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I mean, you're a billboard, Mark.

[Mark Cuban]

I am a walking billboard.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So I feel.

[Mark Cuban]

But anyway, so once you to that size, you still need to be educated on the health care side.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Right.

[Mark Cuban]

That's where we come in. The goal is if I can work with these companies and make them demand transparency, publish contracts and do direct contracting so everybody knows the pricing and then act as the financial backstop. All this becomes public and other companies can make wiser decisions themselves. Now all of a sudden, instead of us looking at health care being as this horrific system, now Bernie can come in and say, oh, now we know what it all costs and we know that you make money, you know, this, this and this. So here's what we can afford to pay.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So basically employers, a bunch of employers, are self insuring. So they're basically paying people. They're paying Cigna and Aetna and United to just administer Stuff as opposed to, like providing any kind of real insurance.

[Mark Cuban]

Exactly right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So that's happening. These companies are also big enough that they're spending tons of money that's keeping Cigna and Aetna.

[Mark Cuban]

And they're overpaying for.

[Nae Ma Raza]

They're overpaying and they don't know how much they're paying because there's no transparency.

[Mark Cuban]

And they don't think they're overpaying because they have consultants who told them they got a great deal.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So you're saying if they fire those consultants and actually, like, did the work, the hard work probably of getting that information from the. From the insurers.

[Mark Cuban]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Then they would look at it and they would then fire the insurer.

[Mark Cuban]

What the hell is going on here?

[Nae Ma Raza]

And go directly. So this is a way to basically bully the insurers out of business.

[Mark Cuban]

I wouldn't say bully it. Just put them out of business in a legal.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Nice way. Yeah, no, I mean just put them out of business. Compete them out of business.

[Mark Cuban]

Give them. Eliminate the reason why. Big companies. To start.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Do business with them.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Mark Cuban]

And then those same insurance companies create the Medicare Advantage plans when that happens.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Well, if they just screw the small businesses, that's what they will do.

[Mark Cuban]

No, because hopefully there'll be other. We'll teach them how to direct contract. And that's why we're publishing all of our contracts, so the small businesses can do just what I do.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Where are you publishing them?

[Mark Cuban]

We'll publish it on a website that as of now is called costplus wellness.com. but it's not up. They're not up yet because we're still finalizing a bunch of them.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So insurance. Is insurance a good business?

[Mark Cuban]

I mean, you have to know it. Yeah, You've got to know it. Yeah. Obviously people are still in it, so they think there is. Warren Buffett's in it. So I'm sure he thinks it is.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's generally pretty good when you look at, you know, it's also the most, I guess, hated business in a lot of ways. And we.

[Mark Cuban]

It is now. Yeah, it is now for healthcare insurance.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah. Because I think everyone had a personal. Everyone's had a personal experience.

[Mark Cuban]

Everyone.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Have you.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Did you have a personal experience with, like, dealing with your parents. Health care?

[Mark Cuban]

No, no, no, no. I mean. Well, that's not true, but it didn't lead to starting it. Right. So my mom had lung cancer and died two years, three years ago next month. We got her to the hospital and. You have lung cancer, Mom. And she already, you know, Kind of thought she did, and she needed a PET scan. And so she had been in the hospital for a few days. And I'm at the hospital, doctor says she needs a PET scan. And I'm like, well, let's. We're here at the hospital. Let's just get her the PET scan. No, she has to check out of the hospital, go home for three days at least, and then come back. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Requirement for the insurance approval, either.

[Mark Cuban]

Insurance approval and Medicare approval and all this gamesmanship that's being played.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Then you took out your credit card.

[Mark Cuban]

No, I said, fuck you, we're leaving. You know, because I couldn't get. I tried to get another. I tried. I called and thinking, okay, hey, I'm Mark Cuban.

[Nae Ma Raza]

No, they said three days.

[Mark Cuban]

This is the hospital right. Where I grew up, literally. I used to play baseball in the St Clair Hospital. I used to play baseball in the back.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Name and shame em.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, Name Em and shame em. Right? And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? This is insane. But. And if I can't get a change, you know, other people are suffering far, far, far worse. But that. It's not necessarily just. Just the insurance companies. It's the fact that the interests of the patient, the people who provide the care and the way it's paid for do not align. Not even a little bit.

[Nae Ma Raza]

No, it's total, like, principal agent problem.

[Mark Cuban]

Right, right, right. So everybody's trying to, you know, do their own thing, to try to maximize, and it conflicts. And when you're. When you do that in an industry that's opaque, like healthcare and pharmaceuticals, everybody loses except for the people with the most power.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You're absolutely right. And the thing I've noticed about the healthcare system is there's another resource which isn't just money. It' it's not insurance or coverage. It's advocacy. Like, you know, when you see people in the hospital have no one there with them.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Mark Cuban]

They have no age.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Americans with no next of kin, you have to be on top of it. When you have a parent or somebody.

[Mark Cuban]

And there's patient management programs and stuff that they do. But. And look, hospitals want to do the right thing. You know, you've got. Hospitals are just trying to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And that's what kind of distorts a lot of things.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Isn't that the capitalism?

[Mark Cuban]

Well, yeah, but it's. Oh, for sure.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. But then socialism doesn't change that.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I'm not saying go to social.

[Mark Cuban]

No, but even but let's look at that though, right? So if, if we're in a socialistic society.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And you run a hospital and you get paid.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You don't get paid the same as somebody, you know, mopping the floors.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No.

[Mark Cuban]

You're gonna get paid more because you need more expertise. And the bigger the hospital you run.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

The more you're going to get paid. Even in the most communistic or socialistic society, there is still self interest involved.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah. And there's corruption and there's cor. All these things. I'm not advocating for that.

[Mark Cuban]

No. And I get that. Right. But the point is there's no absolute, you know, like they say, what is it? Capitalism isn't the best system, but find me one that's better. Look, there's people, wealthy people with more money than me that are like, they just want more.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

How much money do you motherfucking need? How is it going to change your life at all? How is it going to change your kids life at all? Their kids life. Their kids, their kids you can go for. You've got enough money for multiple generations.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, presuming you don't have a moron in your family. Family. And you know how much more money.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Morons can make it big too, right?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, yeah, we know. But how much do you need?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And you know, there's just going to be people like that always.

[Nae Ma Raza]

How much money is too much money?

[Mark Cuban]

It's not so much that it's too much, it's how much it's. What do you do when you get, how do you get where you got and what are you doing to try to get more?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Wherever you are, what's the optimal. Well, like, what do you think? Like after a certain point doesn't matter anymore.

[Mark Cuban]

No, I don't know. I mean, because if you want to buy a football team, it's going to be $10 billion, you know, and so, yeah, like most people need luck to get to the level I'm at. Just like I was born at the right time so that I started an Internet company when the Internet stock market took off. If I would have been born five years earlier, five years later, who knows?

[Nae Ma Raza]

A friend of mine, Pen. Pen Wong, always says, like, if you don't believe in luck, you can't have compassion. And there's a certain amount of ethos here of like the, the American dream and meritocracy of like, if you made it, then you deserve to have made it. If you don't make it, then you didn't Deserve to make it. And I think that's something in the healthcare employment thing. It's like, if you have a job, you deserve to be insured. If you don't have a job, you don't deserve to be insured. That's.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't. Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

That's not cool.

[Mark Cuban]

No. I mean, I'm a big believer. Life is half random.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You can control half of your life, but there's shit that's outside of your control. There's nothing you can do about it. You know, it could be genetic. It could be any thousand. You walk across the street at the wrong time, you know, shit can go wrong. People have shit fall in their head. A tree falls.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Diagnosis, whatever it may be. Right. Life is half random. Yeah. And I just think to get to, you know, how much money is too much. It's not a gradual build.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

It's never a gradual build. Where, okay, today I made a few dollars more. Today I made a few dollars more. Oh, my goodness. I can stop now. It's more, you know, step, step, step, step, step, giant leap for, you know, wallet kind.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Right.

[Mark Cuban]

You know?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Well, it's like that book that you bought, right? Like, retire and live like a student. But maybe when you have a couple million dollars, you don't want to live like a student anymore.

[Mark Cuban]

I just wanted my time. Right. But to your point, you're right. Yeah. I wanted freedom. To me, that's what money buys more than anything.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

That's what having a plane buys more than anything.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I mean, there are certain types of money. I have seen that, like, people that actually, like, becomes handcuffs on people or like people become used to a certain way of living and so they become trapped by that way.

[Mark Cuban]

You have to keep on making more. Yeah. If you're not willing to give something out.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You're always going to be in that trap.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Let's take a quick break and when we're back, I'm going to tell Mark about the system that I think is better than capitalism. Hint it has to do with sports. We'll be back in a minute.

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I think you said to me, was it like capitalism is broken? Show me about it.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, you show me something. I forget the exact quote. But yeah, effectively, yeah, Kaplan isn't the best system, but show me one that's better.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So I think there's one that's better, which is the mba.

[Mark Cuban]

The MBA system, huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely socialism.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You would say that as the most fine owner in the NBA.

[Mark Cuban]

James Dolan talked about it all the time in our meetings.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It is, right. I would. I was at the Times, I ran this story, Benjamin Applebaum. There was a story in the New York Times that was called, is it the NBA or is it Socialism?

[Unnamed Speaker]

A video.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Have you seen this? Uh, but basically, like the NBA has salary caps.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Uh huh.

[Nae Ma Raza]

What I really like, the worst team gets the best pick. The best team gets the worst pick. Like the drafts round, they have all these mechanisms to kind of keep it fair. And I don't think anyone's looking at the NBA and saying they're not playing their hearts out and they're not playing really hard. It seems like it is a capitalist system where it's like, well, it's more.

[Mark Cuban]

To protect the owners from themselves. Because if you look at baseball, baseball, you have teams that spend all the money. The Dodgers, the Mets, now the Yankees. And you have. I'm from Pittsburgh and every day I get an email from some fan in Pittsburgh saying, will you buy the Pirates?

[Nae Ma Raza]

See, I didn't even know what the team was.

[Mark Cuban]

They don't spend the money.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And so there is a bifurcation. It's not, you know, there's not parity or even close to parity.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And you can pay more in the NBA, you just have to get fined if you pay more.

[Mark Cuban]

Well, yeah, there's luxury taxes and everything and there's restrictions, but that makes it work because it's not fair that fans in Milwaukee as An example. Or fans in Memphis don't have as good a chance. That's the way it is. It's really to create an equilibrium between different size markets. So isn't that good an equilibrium?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh yeah. I don't complain about that.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You like it. So someone else.

[Mark Cuban]

Jim. Yeah, Jim Dolan.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Jim goal.

[Mark Cuban]

Dolan. He owns the Knicks.

[Nae Ma Raza]

The Knicks. Oh, okay.

[Mark Cuban]

And I'm not saying he's complaining about it. Yeah. But he makes the point that we are a socialist organization.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So the NBA has managed to create this system, like if you look at healthcare. And part of the reason it's screwed up that we haven't even talked about is the fact that like all of these companies, these big companies are, you know, putting in campaign donations for their congressmen and like putting in money to lobby for the regulations that behoove them.

[Mark Cuban]

Get rid of Citizens United. I'm all for it.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah. Oh yeah. The huge regulatory capture that's happening in the healthcare industry. And then you have this other system which I think is better than capitalism, the MBA system where you have have fair play, unfettered, kind of like, you know, like real heart and passion and money flying around. A lot of money flying around, but some limitations to the system. And the billionaires that are there own the teams, but they do not own the system.

[Mark Cuban]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So how can the U.S. government. This is like a total dumb question or it's a genius question. I don't know. But like how can the US government learn from the mba or how can systems learn from them?

[Mark Cuban]

I mean, the other side of the NBA is very much exclusionary. You know, not everybody can get in. There's not an unlimited number of franchises. And part of the value proposition for how the NBA runs is increasing the value of the franchises. And so you couldn't to have the government do that. Okay, Pittsburgh, sorry, there's not enough here for us. Dallas, you're in Pittsburgh. You don't have a franchise, so you.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Don'T get any government federalism.

[Mark Cuban]

Right, right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's like opt in. But. But at some point, like the value of the system is the American economy. And in that case, like the American economy grows.

[Mark Cuban]

No, I would tell you the value of the system is the American people. I just had this conversation with a politician yesterday. You see our current president taking credit for everything. Yeah, our last president, Bidenomics. I did this. I did a. You. You didn't do. I'm not saying all his programs are bad. Right. But it wasn't him implementing them and making them work.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Of course it's the people.

[Mark Cuban]

It's the people who do it. It's entrepreneurs who start. When I was going around campaigning for comma, one of the things I used to say all the time, because the Democrats can't sell wor. Right. So I was the only one who could try. And I'm not even a Democrat.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But you're a billboard.

[Mark Cuban]

I'm a billboard, yes. And I would say that there are 33 million businesses in this country and 99% of them, give or take, are run by individuals who make $400,000 or less. Yeah, that's who makes this country go.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, 65% of new jobs come from small businesses. Innovation comes from those people. What makes our country different. And I would say this all the time. This be my closing billboard spike. I would say you can go to any country in the world and there's not the Chinese dream or the German dream, there's the American dream. Because this is the one country where everybody has that idea like you talked about earlier, getting that feeling in your stomach going to Google to check it out. Everybody in this country has had that happen to them at some point. And there are 33 million people who have said, yes, I'm starting this business. And of those 33 million, it could be a 12, 50 or 100 year old person. Those are the people. That's what's important. That's what makes this economy. Because we all have that opportunity now. It's not equal opportunity for everybody. Not everybody is put in that position to create those companies. But there is that opportunity there, I think.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I mean, having grown up outside of the US I see that like, I mean, you see more entrepreneurialism and you haven't seen like Apple or these trillion dollar companies come out of a lot of places that don't already have an immense natural resource in the form of, you know, oil or whatever. But you do. Like I do feel that entrepreneurial spirit in other places. I'm Pakistani, but in India, for example.

[Mark Cuban]

Well, you have 1.4 billion people. Shit's gonna happen.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Shit's gonna happen. Like. But then people feel like this unfairness of, well, I'm supposed to be able to do that and I haven't done that. For whatever reason I haven't done it. And therefore I'm supposed to have this shittier lot in life. Like that is part of what the system is telling us. And I think it's not about, so.

[Mark Cuban]

What would you do?

[Nae Ma Raza]

So, I don't know. I want to make it more like the NBA, but you're saying it's too exclusive. Everyone has to shoot hoops to be able to play. But I do want to. I think that it's about leveling the playing field a little bit. Right between the teams. I mean, part of it is, is like, I mean, trying to provide some services, like provide universal healthcare, not do student loan forgiveness, which I personally think is kind of dumb because I think a lot. A bunch of really bad universities.

[Mark Cuban]

It's because we give so much. We give so much money. Loan so much money. It's really easy for schools to raise the price.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Exactly.

[Mark Cuban]

As it turns out, the price of tuition has been coming down over the last 10 years because fewer and fewer people are going to college now, but.

[Nae Ma Raza]

The sticker price goes up. And they do the same thing with like the PBMs when they take the rebates.

[Mark Cuban]

Right. You're exactly right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And they like, charge you.

[Mark Cuban]

We gave you a deal. Such a deal.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Or. But I think like, you make, you know, community colleges and state universities really, really good and incentivize people to go to them in a big way.

[Mark Cuban]

Community college is free. You pick one public university per dma, each market area.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Like one in the Dallas area. And you negotiate. You give all the public universities the chance to compete. You say, we're going to pick one and for the next 10 years you're going to be free. But that way everybody's got to compete with free. And it's still capitalistic.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like, the big question for me is like, can billionaires save us? And I came in with some sense that like, like they can't. Or at least we shouldn't expect them to. But your system is costplusdrugs.com is a way.

[Mark Cuban]

It doesn't mean billionaires can't do good things.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, but you're limiting yourself. Like, you are self regulating. You're saying, I'm not going to charge a 25% markup or 35%. And you probably could have charged 25.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, Ayn Rand, who I'm a fan of, even though people like the virtue of selflessness, I get immense joy from fucking up the healthcare system.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, that's worth more than to you than the money.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, that's worth more to me than the money. It's just like. Yeah, it's like winning the championship for the Mavs.

[Nae Ma Raza]

How do you get people. How do you create incentives for people to create a company like yours versus a company that charges.

[Mark Cuban]

There's plenty of. There's plenty of people who do it. You Know, it's just. They're not the billboard. Yeah, that's the harder part. You know, there are solutions there, but it always goes back to where are the incentives? We can talk about billionaires, but you also have to talk about politicians. I mean, the dumb shit the politicians do just to get reelected.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And the amount of money that we spend on political campaigns to get somebody elected or reelected, like, it's ridiculous.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Especially when most people can't name their congressperson. And that's where all that money goes.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, Royce West, I don't know if he's mine anymore, but. But that's state.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But that's like capitalism in our politics too. Yeah, but how do you, like, how do you spend time in a system like healthcare and think capitalism is still like, laissez faire? Capitalism is still the best way forward.

[Mark Cuban]

So this gets to another question. Right? So how do you approach solving problems? And I get on this, on blue sky all the time with people, you know, burn it down, you know, socialize everything. What problem are you solving? You know, because it's one thing to say do this and this is the solution. It's a whole nother thing to go through the process and say, okay, I can get from where we are today to solving the problem. And you may hate billionaires trying to get. But that's why. That's how some of us think.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, how do you. It's not just what's the end goal.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Mark Cuban]

But it's what's the process to get to the end goal. And not all, like there's.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Bad, good, whatever.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

But I don't think politicians do that at all. They think, what's. What am I going to do to get me reelected? And I might have the best interest of people at heart. It's aligned with me getting reelected versus.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Like in your case, like you have good interest for the people, but you also have the bad. The interest in like, of fucking with the bad guys.

[Mark Cuban]

Hell yes.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Which is a really good motivator.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, no, it's a great motivator.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Motivator in life. I also think like, okay, on the NBA point, like there's a way that they found to fund. And you paid a lot of. How much did you pay?

[Mark Cuban]

I don't even know. Millions.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Millions.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

My God. Must be nice, Mark.

[Mark Cuban]

It is nice.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It is nice to yell at somebody.

[Mark Cuban]

By the way, I lost money in the NBA until I sold on a year to year basis. I made money out of 24 years. I owned the team two years maybe really? Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

My favorite of your fines was, like, you told somebody you couldn't work at.

[Mark Cuban]

Like, a Dairy Queen.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, Dairy Queen.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was right when I bought the team and I told the head of officials, they I wouldn't hire them to run a Dairy Queen. They fined me half a million dollars. But then the guy who owned a Dairy Queen north of Dallas called me up and says, why don't you come and work Dairy Queen for a day?

[Nae Ma Raza]

He was insulted.

[Mark Cuban]

No, because he saw an opportunity. Yeah. So he called every media outlet in all of Dallas, Nashville, Katie Couric on the Today show, and I'm in there trying to learn how to make a Dairy Queen cone. It's 917 to get the curl 117.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You still remember that?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. And I'm getting there at six in the morning to learn how to make Dairy Queen cones and blizzards.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

I mean, a mean blizzard. My cones were for shit. But. But there was literally, I got there at 7 in the morning, give or take. There was a line 2 miles long of people like, if you ever. If you Google Mark Cuban Dairy Queen and look at the pictures, it is this. There were helicopters. Like, really? Oh, my God.

[Nae Ma Raza]

But that's a billboard.

[Mark Cuban]

Well, that's where I learned how to be a billboard. That's why I learned it was going to be different. My life was going to be different.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So when you saw Donald Trump at the McDonald's, did you know like that what looked like a Norman Rockwell painting?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, he did it. It was smart. It was a billboard.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It was a billboard.

[Mark Cuban]

He knows how to sell.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Okay, here's a dumb question, but, like, why can't we. I know you hate taxes on unrealized gains. You're happy to pay your tax.

[Mark Cuban]

Can't do it. Yeah, you can't do it.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's patriotic to pay your taxes. You pay your taxes in full, but you can't tax people on unrealized gains. Explain why.

[Mark Cuban]

Because let's just say that you get an offer for your podcast and the threshold was $100 million, right?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

So let's just say you. You've just built this into the most amazing, amazing, amazing po Podcast.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Keep going, Mark.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And you know, Joe Rogan begged to work for you, and you build it up. You know, the OVAN now works for you.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You can come Joe and Theo, Right. Be curious. You can.

[Mark Cuban]

You get offered a billion dollars, so now it's worth a billion dollars in.

[Nae Ma Raza]

A stock or equity stock. Right.

[Mark Cuban]

Let's say you went public and it's worth a billion.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Paper billionaires.

[Mark Cuban]

You're a paper billionaire, so nice.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And so if all of a sudden there's a 40% tax tax on unrealized gains or even 20% on unrealized gains, you. You've got $26,000 in the bank.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And you have a tax bill of $200 million. Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

See, people always say that, like, oh, if you. If you make it so high, it'll become prohibitive. But the last time, like, Bill Gates did something really innovative.

[Mark Cuban]

I've had two experiences with Bill Gates, and actually, I admire all the things he's done for society and the world. When I sold Broadcast.com right afterwards, I got asked to do a speech, and I wasn't going to do any more speeches because I sold and I was in the Mavs now and. But Bill Gates was on before me.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Y.

[Mark Cuban]

And I gave this speech just so I could walk up there and say, I always wanted to have Bill Gates as my opening act.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Bill Gates was your fluffer. I said it, not you. You don't have to say it.

[Mark Cuban]

Anyway, so the first time, though, I experienced Bill Gates was I had my first company. I was at this show called Comdex, which was the. The world's largest computer show event and convention. And so I'm there, I'm 26 maybe, and I'm thinking, I'm living life, right? I just. My company just started to build, and I'm buying drinks. I had made. Met these girls and everything, and a couple of really pretty girls. And I'm like, they told me they're going to the bathroom.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

I'm like, okay. And I'm waiting there with my drinks and everything. They don't come back. And then I see one of them. And late next day or whatever, oh, we ran into Bill Gates. He had a lot more money than you do. And so every time, Bill Gates stole my girls.

[Nae Ma Raza]

For every man in a club, saying, I'm richer than you. I'm richer than you, I'm richer than you.

[Mark Cuban]

There's one that's richer than me.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, that's before every man in a. Or woman, in this case, in the world sitting there because Oprah could be in the club.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't care if you've got more money than me. More power to you.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So Bill Gates, but the last, like, you know, he made Microsoft when the tax rate was like, what, 70%?

[Mark Cuban]

No, no, no. The rules were a lot people made.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Companies when there were. When taxes were much.

[Mark Cuban]

But there were so many deductions There were so many ways. Even when it was 90%, there were so many different deductions and exceptions that you could get that it was really.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Rare and the government has to spend the money better. Do you think they're going to do that with Doge? Are you actually hopeful about it?

[Mark Cuban]

I don't think Elon's necessarily the right person to do it, but I think it's the right concept, for sure.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So, I mean. But he's another example of a billionaire who's trying to save us by taking us to Mars.

[Mark Cuban]

Right.

[Nae Ma Raza]

What do you think of that?

[Mark Cuban]

What's nothing wrong with it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

There's something about, like, those kinds of missions that require that kind of. What we were talking about in healthcare, like the kind of capital and scale.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. I mean, that's why you try. I'm guessing that's why. Well, Elon's a different, you know, particularly. And it's not even so much the money as the billboard.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

The bigger the billboard, the more the power. The more the power, the more intoxicating. The more intoxicating, the more you don't want to lose it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And the more it changes who you are. The same happens with politicians, same happens with CEOs.

[Nae Ma Raza]

How can we keep billionaires good? Do you have, like, WhatsApp groups? Like good billionaire, WhatsApp, bad billionaire?

[Mark Cuban]

I am in this one, but they're not all billionaires, but there's a lot of rich people. It's a signal group.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, it's a signal group.

[Mark Cuban]

And I'm like, I can't tell you who's in it.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Tell me who's in it.

[Mark Cuban]

No. Have to know. I have to cut off your tongue.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Okay. That's a bit of a. I like it. So. But there. But there is groups, and this is a good billionaires group.

[Mark Cuban]

I was on a Simpsons episode where it was like the billionaire heritage and some guy's net worth went from, you know, 990 of 1 billion and a little bit to 999 million. And I had to kick him out.

[Nae Ma Raza]

What was your line?

[Mark Cuban]

You know, the only line I remember from it, it was season eight, is they made me say, I'm out of my mind. It was out of mind. Coolest thing ever, Right. They put me in this audio sound box.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And, you know, with the microphone and everything. And there was this thing because they had. Part of it was related to the Mavs. And The Mavs and Mr. Smithers wanted to buy a sports team. And he was like, who's that? Mark Cuban. Guy, right? And they just showed me jumping from the top of the arena screaming, I'm out of my mind. I'm out of my mind. But the best part was I'm in this little sound booth booth. I would scream it, and they'd be like, no, it's gotta be louder.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And they're like, the director.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, he's in my ear going, it's gotta be louder. So when you see me on The Simpsons Season 8, was that more rewarding.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Screen appearance for you than Sharknado, or was it.

[Mark Cuban]

No, Sharknado was a blast.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Are you gonna. What are they on, like, the 9th or 10th sharknado, or is it keep? They keep.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't think they. I think they stopped. But it was so much fun. So much.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Really fun.

[Mark Cuban]

I can't even begin to describe how much fun shooting that was, because I got to shoot fake guns. I got to shoot at sharks. You know, I got to run and slide and, you know, be the president and, like, have the sharks coming at the White House, shooting these rifles at the fake sharks, going, not my house. And then the better part was that when I. Cause I made a deal, I said, I can't get eaten, no matter what. I can be bitten, but not eaten.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You want it to be in a sequel?

[Mark Cuban]

I wanted to be in a sequel. I wanted to survive.

[Nae Ma Raza]

That was your writer?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, yeah, basically. And. But the funniest part was I had, like, Lou Ferrigno, the guy who played the Hulk back in the day. Right. Rick Fox, 6, 8, basketball player. All these other people. People, they were getting killed. They're like the security guards and everything. And they're getting eaten by sharks that aren't there yet. So they had to make them lay on the ground and do all these convulsions. And I'm watching these enormous guys, you know, just convulsing. It was great. And then there's this other scene where the sharks are coming through and we're running. Oh, my God, it was so much fun.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Why aren't you doing more acting? You loved it.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, I love doing the acting. So whenever I get asked, like, I've got a show, a movie movie coming up with Mark Wahlberg where I don't. All I do is get shot and killed by Mark Wahlberg. They put all the squibs in me and everything, you know, and one time I had to do the head back, you know, and the other time, the head down. Yeah, it was. It's cool. I love that stuff.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I think that's why. I think that's why you're like one of the billionaires that people like. It's like you just have fun.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. How can I not? I'm the luckiest on the planet.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, I mean, not everything goes right, but. Oh, my God. I mean, you don't want. I don't want to be 95 years old and say, why didn't I do, you know, the podcast and.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? Why? You know, the fuck.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You know, billionaires are coming forth a lot in electoral politics. I mean, they always have to some extent, like Bloomberg, you know, I think there are a lot of people in New York City where I live, where people are nostalgic for Bloomberg.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

The straw there in San Francisco who's just come in, obviously Donald Trump. So, like, do you think that's a good thing, billionaires running for office?

[Mark Cuban]

I think it's irrelevant.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You think it's irrelevant? Do you think billionaires get a bad rap?

[Mark Cuban]

Yes. You don't know me.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, if I val. You know, if I judge somebody by their bank account, it goes both ways. If it's wrong to judge somebody because, you know they're poor, just as wrong to judge me in my mind, because they're wealthy. Nobody was saying to me, mark, you're sleeping on the floor. You have zero money. Literally. You know, I've told the story before. I was 27 years old and went to the ATM and I had 0,000 at that moment because I put all my money into my business and zero in my bank account.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And nobody was saying, mark, your. Your opinion matters more now. Understand and respect the person.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Just unless someone gives you a reason not to respect them, the default should be to respect them whether they're, you know, immigrants, legal.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Illegal, you know, business people, you know, junkies. I don't care.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt until you show me otherwise.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's not like a exclusive like you're. Hate some billionaires, but just don't hate billionaires as a class. They are not all the same. And don't hate them on the billionaire.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. Just look to see who they are.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Wouldn't you treat anybody else that way? And so, you know, when someone says, eat the rich, I don't care. You know, when someone says, you know, every billionaire is a political failure. Okay, I understand it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And I can understand that sentiment, but.

[Nae Ma Raza]

That'S like, hate the game, don't hate the player.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah. It's just. Is what it is, right?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Is that what you say?

[Mark Cuban]

Hate the player? Hate the game, not the player.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So in the midst of Louis Jean news, Kathy Hochul, government New York, had a meeting, and there was some reporting around this from CNN that New York was, quote, considering setting up a hotline for CEOs so they can call to report security concerns or threats. And it was reported the same week as, like, a woman was lit on fire in the mta. And you can imagine this, you know, made people right.

[Mark Cuban]

Why did they get special? Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And what do you think about that? Like, do you think we need protection? Like, do we live in an era right now where people are so mad at wealth that the wealthy need.

[Mark Cuban]

No. I mean, I have security. I can afford my own security.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Henchmen.

[Mark Cuban]

I got henchmen.

[Unnamed Speaker]

How many?

[Mark Cuban]

76 of them.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Really?

[Mark Cuban]

I was, well, henched. Yeah. And it's more for my kids than anything else, you know, and family, so. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And then billionaires, we care about what they think about everything. We ask them for their opinion. Like, I'm here. I'm asking you for your opinion. What do you think of that? Is that kind of insane?

[Mark Cuban]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right?

[Mark Cuban]

Yes. But at the same time, you know, we listen to actors, we listen to athletes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

And it goes back to what Charles Barkley said long time ago. I am not a role model.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

You know, but we live in a content society where everybody's got to fill up as much content. Every podcast needs a guest.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, yeah. Like here I'm like, I'm going to cut two podcasts out of this. Okay. Right.

[Mark Cuban]

We keep on talking. Right. You know, why do we listen to billionaires? Because every podcast needs a guest.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, that's true. Okay. I mean, now I feel like I have to get billionaires for all the other episodes, and that's not going to work for, like, what do you do if you see a bear?

[Mark Cuban]

But you get my point, right?

[Nae Ma Raza]

When I do the. What do you see if you. What do you do if you see a bear episode?

I'm not going to ask a billionaire.

No billionaire is going to know what to do.

[Mark Cuban]

I would know what to do.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It depends on the color of the bear. Does anyone know this?

[Mark Cuban]

Let me just say. Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So every. Every episode on the show. Not every episode is going to have a billionaire, but every episode in the show is going to end with, like, what is the guest dumb about? What's a dumb question you have that you don't know the answer to?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, my God. There's unlimited number What's a question I have that I don't know the answer to?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah. What is Mark Cuban dumb about?

[Mark Cuban]

Why do people chew with their mouths open?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Just show us what it would look like chewing with it.

[Mark Cuban]

No. That is my ultimate pet peeve.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

Why are some people afraid of heights and others are not? What is it?

[Nae Ma Raza]

Yeah, you know, mission accepted, Mark. I'm going to find these answers for you. I'm going to find the answers to these.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't know why, but I do know from a thing I got from.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Are you going to tell me you know about the thing you're doing dumb about?

[Mark Cuban]

No, no, no, no. I can have one smidgen of information, right? I can have a data point. I have a data point.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Okay. What's a data point?

[Mark Cuban]

Data point is that 17% of people are annoyed by people eating with their mouths open.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I am in the Super 17.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, my God.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I'm like, that's like a no second date situation for me.

[Mark Cuban]

One of my best friends. I will not go out to dinner with him. I'll go drinking. I'll do whatever.

[Nae Ma Raza]

So you want to know why do some people chew with their mouth open?

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Why is like, Is there like a natural. You want to know? I know why some people are chewing biological reality.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't know. I don' I know why. I know why people don't like it like us. Because it's genetic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

But I don't know why they do it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Mark Cuban]

I don't. Why would you do this knowing that 17% of the population is just annoyed as fuck?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Wow.

[Nae Ma Raza]

I feel like the next business you're going to start is like mouthclosed dot com. Shoot with your mouth closed dot com.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No.

[Mark Cuban]

But I did invest in a shark tank company for hiccups.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, really?

[Mark Cuban]

Called Hiccoway.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Hic away.

[Mark Cuban]

It is the coolest thing ever.

[Nae Ma Raza]

It's working.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Worse than slapping someone.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, unless you enjoy the slapping part, right?

[Nae Ma Raza]

I enjoy the slapping part.

[Mark Cuban]

Doubt about that. None.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Questions? We're going to find out for you. The mouth open thing, Right? And number two, heights. That's a really good. That is question. That is a good question.

[Mark Cuban]

Why are you afraid of heights? Yeah, I have no idea. I found out when I was five years old. Oh. I'm terrified.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Really?

[Mark Cuban]

Oh, my God. My dad told me the story. He took me to my first baseball game and the only tickets we could afford were at the very top. And he said by the time I got to the second ramp, where we're up in the Air. I started shaking, screaming and crying.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Oh, he's poor little five year old non billionaire Mark Cuban.

[Mark Cuban]

And it didn't change for the rest of my life.

[Nae Ma Raza]

Still.

[Mark Cuban]

Oh my God. So in Pittsburgh, right? This all in Pittsburgh, to go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game, you have to walk across a bridge and it's one of those greats on the sidewalks where you can see down. Literally, my friends would laugh their asses off at me. I would like squeeze the the rails to be able to like one leg at a time, walk across plus and then like roller coasters.

[Nae Ma Raza]

No, but private planes, you're fine.

[Mark Cuban]

Yeah, because it feels stable. Any plane. Like when I flew for the very first time, I was really scared that I was going to have a problem.

[Nae Ma Raza]

And so, yeah, all right, we're going to find out the answers. Thank you so much. Mark was so generous.

[Mark Cuban]

It was fun. Yeah, you're good.

[Nae Ma Raza]

You have good first guest energy.

So Mark Cuban is a pretty good billboard as advertised and I think a lot of fun. And my mind was pretty blank alone by his vision for health care. And at the same time I left with these kind of two lingering thoughts, one of which is why is our health care tied to our employment? It still doesn't make sense to me. And just as someone who's an independent creative like makes me think of all the people who are shackled to jobs that they don't want because of health insurance or all the people who don't have health insurance because they're not employed but they're trying to do something really productive and good for society. And two, while I think this idea of employers being the ones that will get us to a single payer system or better healthcare is like a fine and noble vision. I also wonder like why government doesn't have that negotiating power and if the very system of capitalism is the reason why our government is so neutered and so unable to do things. Because ultimately the people we voted into office are owned by the donors and the billionaires and the capitalists who, you know, push money into the system. That's why I'm still really interested in this NBA model. Like here's some real competition, some stuff, stellar play. And they're able to keep billionaires in line and in check and level the.

Playing field and have a lot more fairness.

Maybe I need to have Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner on to talk to me about that. Maybe we can learn from him about keeping billionaires in check. Maybe he'll run for president. Maybe he knows what to do if he sees a bear thanks for listening to this episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions.

By the way, if you have smart.

Ideas on dumb questions, I want to know them, so put them in the comments below. Leave us a review if you like this the show hit subscribe or follow wherever you get your content or drop me an email. I'm naimaraza101mail.com thanks for listening to this episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. I want to give a huge thanks to Jesse Creel, Maya, Mark's mutual friend who made this episode happen, as well as to my friend Theresa Chow who named the show. Special thanks also to Talish Schlossberg, Max Cantor, Madeline Frank, Reeves, Mahmood Youssef, Adam Elick, Blakeney Shik, and Megan. Many more who helped me get this thing off the ground. A very special thanks also to my brand partners like Noom, who made it possible for me to create a podcast that Mark Cuban thinks is going to make me as rich as him. Unlikely. This episode was produced with Stickbird Productions, Jade Watson, Deanna Dasta and Juliana de Orzo, with engineering by Kes Agnew, technical production by Daniel Hartman, additional research from Claire Lichtenstein, an additional editorial from the wonderful Holly Teal and Allison Bresnik, and our theme music is by David Kahn. We taped it to all the People Media Studio in Dallas, Texas, and the gals there, Janelle and Eunice, absolutely rocked. See you next Friday at Smart Girl Dumb Questions.