As 2024 draws to a close, we're joined by Mark Cuban to reflect on how technology, business, and politics shaped this year. Together we explore his foray into the political arena as a surrogate for Kamala Harris, his mission to disrupt America's healthcare system, and ways government might harness AI to tackle the country’s most entrenched problems. Plus, Mark gives Jon a lesson in crypto. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What does Mark Cuban reflect on regarding 2024?
But we are going to do our final conversation for this year with our go-to dude, who does our final conversations, Mark Cuban. As you know, we had Bernie Sanders on last week. We like to go from Bernie Sanders to Mark Cuban. You go from the democratic socialist to the billionaire, and you hope that the audience does not sustain a groin pull in that transition.
But a really interesting guy, really smart guy, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation, and I hope you guys are too. So let's just get on damn to it. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our annual weekly show pod wrap-up. As per tradition, Mark Cuban will be joining us. He is the co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs. Mark Cuban, welcome to the weekly show pod year-end roundup.
From now on, I am only going to introduce you as co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs. As far as I'm concerned, Mavericks, Shark Tank, billionaire, none of that. It's co-founder Cost Plus Drugs.
That's all I care about.
That's all we care about. Mark Cuban, the year has ended. This has been a tumultuous, a tumultuous year. For you personally, you've changed in terms of you're done with Shark Tank now. Have you taped your last episode?
I have taped my last episode. I'll have to do some updates for some of the companies I invested in. But in terms of sitting in the chair, done.
Now, did they throw at the end of it? Was there like a dog pile? What was the type of celebration that was done to end your reign?
There was cake and alcohol and a little going away party. So it was fun.
All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. No nudity, I'm assuming. It was all above board. It was all parental consent and that type of thing.
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Chapter 2: How did Mark Cuban's political experience shape his views?
They plunge their inflation rate, but drives them into a recession and creates a political crisis.
And more poverty, et cetera, right? And he probably argued the opposite, but still. I understand. If you're going to print a lot of money, you are going to have a lot of inflation. And that, you know, again, I'm not the economist, but I don't see that as being a significant positive. I think, you know, if you have 26, 30, 50 percent inflation, your stability goes out the door.
Even if you did a one time reset, like you looked at it like this is not going to be an ongoing thing. But, you know, as Krugman would say, I've got a trillion dollar coin and it turns out I'll just flip that thing over there and we've cleaned it out a little bit and we're going to give ourselves a little bit more of a fresh start.
I don't think that works, but again, maybe there's an angle there that I don't know.
And you won't – because I know you love to spend your time thinking about this, and it's always – and I thank you so much. We probably went off the rails on crypto, but I've learned an awful lot. You still don't consider yourself, though, a viable political player. No. Oh, no. Right. And having that experience.
Do you think being on the trail for the Harris campaign really dissuaded you of that ever as a possibility?
No, I loved it, right? It wasn't that. It's my family. I mean, look at all the shit they're doing that they did to J.D. Vance. I don't want my kids hearing about me fucking a couch, you know, or, you know, when I was- That's really a you issue, though, more than anything. It was a nice couch. Yeah.
I took it to dinner, you know, it was nice. But listen, man, do you really think that as a viable political candidate, you would take more shit than you take today? I mean, there's no question the amount of shit you take today. Just getting involved with the Harris campaign was extraordinary. I mean, they went after you like crazy.
As everybody, look, I take it just from being on fucking basic cable. Like, it's extraordinary the reach of that now.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do small businesses face in 2024?
So yeah, I've, I've done, I've done a lot wrong this year, but I've had an awful lot of fun doing so.
That's all that matters. All right.
What else, what else we got? Anything?
Other than our lovely guest that we've just had on, who's your favorite billionaire and why?
Oh, wow. A favorite billionaire. You know, I wonder if I know more than one. Like I've talked to him. I've talked to Elon. I don't know. I'm trying to think if there's another billionaire. I probably do know them. I just don't know. You know who I would say? Seinfeld. He's actually pretty close to probably being a billionaire and funny as shit. He might be the funniest billionaire.
Okay.
Yeah. And he does, he generally doesn't try and chip us or he doesn't try and like do other billionaire shit to us.
Yeah.
So I give him credit on that. You know, he could.
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Chapter 5: What role does AI play in healthcare according to Mark Cuban?
Sure. I mean, no economic activity, you know, then everyone's going to want that. But in 2008, the government collapsed the interest rates so that the people at the top could get that free money.
Whatever it is, whatever it is, that's the only way you're going to have a dramatic impact on the debt.
Well, let's look at it this way. Let's flip it to – there's a lot of people and it's this modern monetary policy where they talk about that the deficit doesn't matter because – and I tend to be sympathetic to this. You can print money and why are we selling this debt to other people anyway? Why don't we buy it ourselves? I mean, it's all kind of a shell game to begin with.
Why not make it easier on ourselves to pay that down through the minting?
Yeah, just playing more money. But now all of a sudden more money is in the economy and the economy re-inflates and you start then having to pay- You think MMT does not, you're not a proponent of that. No, actually, I read the books. I talked to the people behind it. When interest rates were zero or near zero, it made 100% sense.
When interest rates skyrocketed to where they are now, it doesn't make sense because even if you just printed all that money, the government can't just print money. They have to borrow money even in a fractionalized environment. There has to be some reason to do it. It's not like there's a printing press that just goes brr, brr, brr, brr, brr.
I'm going to blow your mind here. We've created this new market of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and all these other things that kind of has in some respects out of nothing made something. What if that was utilized to bring down those more troublesome aspects of deficits?
Because we do need government to spend to help stimulate certain things, to stabilize people, to do things that have real value in people's lives.
Sure. But there's still – Debits and credits still have to balance. I'm not the economist who can give you a detailed analysis of all this stuff.
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