Mark Cuban: What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About AI (#319)
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How does Mark Cuban spot future opportunities before anyone else?
What does it take to spot the future before everyone else and act on it before the opportunity becomes obvious? Mark Cuban has done it across tech, media, sports, and now healthcare. So how does he evaluate ideas, make decisions, and keep adapting as the world changes around him? Hi, everyone. I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Today, I'm excited to be with Mark Cuban. Mark is an entrepreneur, investor, former principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks and co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, which is bringing greater transparency to prescription drug pricing.
Few people have built, bought, and transformed businesses across as many industries. Mark, it's great to be with you again. Thanks for having me, Lynn. I'm really excited to be on the show. It is my pleasure. You've made a career out of finding opportunities, hiding in plain sight. What do you notice that everyone else overlooks?
I don't think it's that I notice things that other people overlook. I think I just look at them more as a business opportunity where other people might see something and think, well, that's kind of crazy. I'll look at it and say, well, it's crazy, but is there a business opportunity there that I can enable? Whether it was being the first streaming company, the first all high definition company, changing around the Mavs and entertainment, or now with healthcare. I try to find things that other people think are crazy, but I think there's a business opportunity there.
You learn faster than almost anyone else. When you're trying to understand a completely new field, how do you approach it?
RTFM, read the freaking manual. I mean, I literally try to consume every single thing that I can. Most people, when they learn, it's very cursory. They have an interest. They'll spend a little bit of time. They'll read some articles, maybe a book, spend some time online, and that'll be it. I just go down every rabbit hole that I can find, and I try to look at it from every perspective. Is this a good reason to support what I'm trying to do? What's the antithesis of it? What would be somebody who thinks is crazy? Why would they say that? So I try to find every angle because in understanding all angles, I know how to deal with people's hesitancies, to deal with objections, and to respond to them.
Essentially, you're describing the grown-up you as the teenage you who asked for and read cover to cover the Encyclopedia Britannica as a teenager.
Yeah, I don't know if I read the whole thing cover to cover, but I found the good articles and pictures.
What is something that you've become less certain about as you've gotten older?
You know, the older you get, there's going to be more areas where you're more stable. You're kind of set in your ways and you kind of have your habits and the things you do every day and the things you enjoy. And to stay an entrepreneur, you've got to be willing to give up a lot of those comfort levels. When I was first getting started, I was broke. I had nowhere to go but up. And when you're broke and everything's kind of a mess, there's no reason why not to start a business. Starting Cost Plus Drugs, it was like, okay, am I going to sell majority ownership in the Mavs? Am I willing to commit the time to do this? Am I willing to be as aggressive as I know it's going to take against an industry with multi-hundred billion dollar companies?
And so I had to give up my comfort levels and I had to realize that I couldn't be who I am today. I had to go back and find that younger Mark Cuban and be just as aggressive.
Wow. So one of the reasons that you sold your majority interest in the Mavs was so you could focus on cost plus drugs?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we launched in January of 22 and I sold in December of 23. Wow.
What is one belief about success you've had to unlearn?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How does Mark Cuban spot future opportunities before anyone else?
0:01–5:31
2
What method does Cuban use to learn a completely new industry quickly?
5:31–9:07
3
Why did Cuban sell his majority stake in the Mavericks to launch Cost Plus Drugs?
9:07–12:47
4
What does Cuban think people are getting wrong about AI’s impact on jobs?
12:47–15:56
5
How can entrepreneurs use AI tools like Cloud Cowork to automate repetitive tasks?
15:56–20:11
6
Which human skills does Cuban say AI will never be able to replace?
20:11–22:53
7
What skill does Cuban advise kids to develop that schools still overlook?
22:53–22:54