Mark Cuban: Shark Tank, DEI & Wokeism Debate, Elon Musk, Politics & Drugs

The person who controls the algorithm controls the world, right? And if you are committed to one specific platform as your singular source of information or affiliated platforms, then whoever controls the algorithm or the programming there controls you. The following is a conversation with Mark Cuban, a multi-billionaire businessman, an investor and star of the series Shark Tank, longtime principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and is someone who is unafraid to get into frequent battles on X, most recently over topics of DEI, wokeism, gender and identity politics with the likes of Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Mark Cuban.

You've started many businesses, invested in many businesses, heard a lot of pitches privately and on Shark Tank. So you're the perfect person to ask what makes a great entrepreneur? Somebody who's curious, they want to keep on learning because business is ever-changing. It's never static. Somebody who's agile, because as you learn new things and the environment around you changes, you have to be able to adapt and make the changes. And somebody who can sell, because no business has ever survived without sales. And as an entrepreneur who's creating a company, whatever your product or service is, if that's not the most important thing and you're just dying and excited to tell people about it, then you're not going to succeed.

Well, that's the whole reason I do Shark Tank. That's true. That show celebrates the entrepreneur. That's true.

Speaking of which, how did you make your first billion? So my partner, Todd Wagner and I would get together for lunches, and we were at California Pizza Kitchen and Preston Hollow in Dallas, and he was talking about how we could use this new thing called the internet. This is the late '94, early '95, to be able to listen to Indiana University basketball games because that's where we went to school. And he look, when we would listen to games, we would have somebody in Bloomington, Indiana have a speakerphone next to a radio, and then we would have a speakerphone in Dallas and a six-pack or 12 pack of beer, and we'd sit around listening to the game because there was no other way to listen to it. So I was like, okay, my first company, MicroSolutions, I'd written software, done network integration. And so I was comfortable digging into it, and so like, okay, let's give it a try.

In 2000, I think January, you purchased a majority stake in the NBA team, Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. At this point, maybe you can correct me, but it was one of the worst performing teams in franchise history. It's true.

You've had a beef recently on Twitter on X with Elon over DEI programs. What to you is the essence of the disagreement there? I wouldn't call it a beef.

Goes away. I do appreciate you bringing up Trump and bleach as an example. So continuing on fun exchanges between you and Elon, you said, "If they were having Biden's last wake and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rights, I would still vote for Biden." To which Elon replied, caricaturing you, "If Biden were a flesh-eating zombie with five seconds to live, where, upon being reelected, Earth would plunge into a 1000 years of darkness, I would still vote for him."

What do you think about the immigration situation? A lot of Conservatives are using that... The theory is that the reason it's happening is because they would be able to illegally vote. That's insane.

All right, so as I mentioned, Cost Plus Drugs, there's so many questions I can ask here, but what's the big question? What's broken about our healthcare system? There's no transparency. And when the lack of transparency leads to lack of trust and when you can't trust the healthcare system other than maybe your doctor, that's a broken system.

Let me ask you about AI. You got a little bit of an argument about open source. I think you stepped in between Vinod Khosla and Mark Andreessen. You think AI should be open sourced? Yeah, for sure.

You don't give away messages. You have, yeah, any expertise evolves and growth and all that kind of stuff, and you want to own that growth. What advice would you give to young people? You have an exceptionally successful career. You came from little, made a lot. What advice would you give them? Love your life. Find the things that you can enjoy. Be curious. You don't have to have all the answers. When you're 12, 15, I get emails from 13, 15-year-old kids, right?