Episode 486: Mark Cuban: Why Most Entrepreneurs Hire Wrong (And Go Broke)

Listen to the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThY-UBFtGK8 Even billionaires struggle with self-doubt. In this Fitness Friday excerpt from my conversation with Mark Cuban, he opens up about still feeling intimidated in rooms full of domain experts, why he believes most entrepreneurs hire the wrong people at the wrong time, and his surprising take on what business you're actually in. We also discuss his prediction for what will make cryptocurrency boom again and his unconventional take on why brand advertising is a waste of money for startups. Mark Cuban is a billionaire entrepreneur, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and star investor on Shark Tank. Despite his success, he remains refreshingly honest about the psychological challenges of high-level business and the mistakes he's seen countless entrepreneurs make. What we discuss: Why Mark Cuban Still Gets Imposter Syndrome Around AI Experts The "Hamster Wheel" Hiring Mistake That Kills Startups Why He Says "You've Got to Be Able to Solve Problems Yourself" His Honest Take on Losing Money in the Voyager Crypto Collapse The Difference Between USD and USDC That Cost People Millions Why the NBA Thought They Were in the Wrong Business (And How He Fixed It) His Prediction for What Will Make Crypto Boom Again Why Brand Advertising is "Typically a Waste of Money" for Startups The Two Things Every Business Must Sell: Differentiation and Path of Least Resistance Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen http://timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Find more from Mark Cuban: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcuban/ Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:09Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:31Jen Cohen?

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• 1:12Jen Cohen?

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• 1:55Speaker 02

  Entrepreneurs tend to think, okay, I'm hiring this amazing marketing person and he or she is gonna know what to do.

• 2:01Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  And then they tell that to their investors because that's typically why they're hiring a marketing person. And they say, oh, this person's amazing. You know, our next quarter is gonna be great. Then it's not. Then they go to the next marketing person.

• 2:10Jen Cohen?

  Totally.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Then, you know, then they're in this hamster wheel again and they're screwed.

• 2:14Jen Cohen?

  It's also relying on other people.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Well, yes. And that's the whole thing, right? You've got to be able to solve the problems yourself.

• 2:21Jen Cohen?

  Self-reliant.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Now, you know, at some point, your business gets bigger and you have to learn how to do a lot of other things. You know, when you go to five people, it's one thing. You go to 10 or 15, it's another challenge, you know, as you learn how to manage and deal with people. But at the same time, if you're not great at your core competency, how are you going to train those people?

• 2:41Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  How are you going to know what the the goals are for the organization and how to communicate to them, how to do what you need them to do?

• 2:48Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  You know, and but every entrepreneur goes through that terror, right? I've gone through it's like, oh shit, you know, can I do this? Right? Or am I smart enough or good enough or talented enough to do these?

• 3:00Jen Cohen?

  The self doubt.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, we all have imposter syndrome. I still have imposter syndrome.

• 3:04Jen Cohen?

  No way.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Oh, hell, yeah. You walk into a circumstance, I'm like, and there's named people that any names anybody would recognize?

• 3:11Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  And I'm like, what the fuck am I doing?

• 3:14Jen Cohen?

  No way.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah.

• 3:17Jen Cohen?

  Who would you be intimidated by?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna get named names, but yeah.

• 3:20Jen Cohen?

  But there are people that you want.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

• 3:23Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  And it's not like an Elon Musk or whatever. It's just someone who has domain knowledge. Like, if I'm sitting in a meeting, we're discussing artificial intelligence.

• 3:31Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Like, I understand artificial intelligence and I've done a lot of reading, so I have a good grasp of it. But this person has created neural networks and models that, you know, have a billion parameters, things that I won't even know how to start to do.

• 3:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  I can understand the conversation.

• 3:47Jen Cohen?

  Right, the concept.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Right, yeah. But I'm not going to know operationally how to execute on it.

• 3:51Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  That's just scary.

• 3:53Jen Cohen?

  It is scary.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Because you're afraid that, okay, did I read enough? Right? Because they're, they're living this day to day.

• 3:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  And I'm never going to catch up and know this day to day. Sitting down with the Mavs, you know, with Jason Kidd there. He's forgot more about basketball than I'll ever know.

• 4:08Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  And so you just, you know, it just.

• 4:11Jen Cohen?

  But you're his boss technically, so.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I.

• 4:14Jen Cohen?

  He can teach you on the side. I don't know.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know, I can read and learn and add the value that I add, you know, for analytics, et cetera. Um, whatever it may be, but, um. Yeah, everybody's going to have that self doubt. The question is, what business are you in? Cause a lot of companies don't even know.

• 4:29Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Like when I got to the NBA, they thought they were in the basketball business.

• 4:33Jen Cohen?

  I know, but you changed that whole team around.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Well, it's not just a team, right? The NBA, yeah, the NBA used to think they marketed basketball.

• 4:39Jen Cohen?

  Oh, that's true. Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  But, you know, I sat there with him. I said, okay, name the last game you went to and tell me what the score was. Nobody remembers unless it was just a big game.

• 4:48Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Right? Name your favorite dunk or shot. No one remembers anyone.

• 4:52Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Tell me who you were with.

• 4:54Jen Cohen?

  And then.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Everybody knows.

• 4:55Jen Cohen?

  Everyone remembers that.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Remember the first game you went to with your parents, your aunt, your uncle, whatever.

• 5:01Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  You're gonna remember.

• 5:01Jen Cohen?

  The emotional part.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, because that's why you go because it's the one place you can scream and yell.

• 5:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, and you do.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I do, right? But where else? You know, you're not gonna see me yell here or there or whatever, but when you go to a game, you know.

• 5:14Jen Cohen?

  So true.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  If, you know, you feel that energy and everybody knows they're part of the entertainment, right? Because you're yelling defense, defense, and that ball's in the air for a game winning or losing shot. And everybody's holding their breath.

• 5:27Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  And if it goes through, you're high fiving and hugging people you've never seen before in your life.

• 5:32Jen Cohen?

  True.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  That's what makes going to a game special, feeling that energy. And they thought it was about, you know, oh, you know, who has the prettiest jump shot?

• 5:39Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. You're right. It's all about the emotional part.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  All about the emotional attachment because that's what sports are. And that's what makes sports different than any other business. And I had to explain that to him. It was just like, you know, when Apple, which has the biggest market cap in the world, has a great quarter. They don't throw parades in Cupertino.

• 5:56Jen Cohen?

  No, they do not.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Right? When the Lakers or Mavericks or whoever win a championship. The whole city goes insane.

• 6:02Jen Cohen?

  It's so true.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  You know, that's unique to sports. And you have to recognize what business are you in? Basketball is the platform, but emotion and entertainment is what we sell.

• 6:13Jen Cohen?

  So how did you turn it like, so you bought the Mavericks, by the way, I mean, at, by the way, great investment for you, right?

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:20Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, it's really good. What? Two eighty-five? You went for two hundred and eighty-five million and now it's worth like two point five billion?

• 6:24Speaker 02

  More than that.

• 6:25Jen Cohen?

  How much now is it worth? Like four?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna sell it.

• 6:27Jen Cohen?

  Oh, why would you? I mean, exactly. You're not gonna sell, but I'm just curious.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Turned out to be under value. Yeah. Yep.

• 6:35Jen Cohen?

  I mean, that's pretty amazing, though.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  It is. It's crazy.

• 6:37Jen Cohen?

  And that's you bought it purely on just passion for basketball.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  I mean, I still play pickup, you know, so that tells you, you know, I can go out before the game starts and just get up shots, you know, on my own court, you know, my own arena.

• 6:48Jen Cohen?

  That must be so, can you, would you, when you were a kid, did you ever think that that was ever?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Hell, no.

• 6:54Jen Cohen?

  Ever gonna happen?

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Never, never in my wildest dreams it ever crossed my mind. It really didn't cross my mind until after I sold my company and had enough money. And it was like,

• 7:03Jen Cohen?

  Now what?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Oh shit. Yeah. Now I can put my money where my mouth is.

• 7:05Jen Cohen?

  But you were smart then. Can you explain why? Like, how did you even think? Cause I like, you took, you, you got, when Yahoo bought Broadcast.com, you got it in stock, right?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:15Jen Cohen?

  And you turned, you had to hedge it or something?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:17Jen Cohen?

  What does that even mean to get it into cash?

• 7:19Speaker 02

  So it was a public, you know, when we got sold to Yahoo, we were a public company who paid us in stock. And because Yahoo also was a public company, you could sell options on it. So I could sell calls, which gave up part of the upside, but allowed me to buy something called puts, which protected my downside.

• 7:34Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  And so I sold calls, bought puts, that's called a hedge, and I did it for my entire position. And it was,

• 7:41Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  And it, when the whole, you know, bubble burst for the dot com era, you know, I actually made more money. And so, yeah, it's been called one of the top 10 trades of all time.

• 7:50Jen Cohen?

  Of all time?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:51Jen Cohen?

  Cause that like changed your entire life.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Well, of course, because there were a lot of people who made a lot of money in stock and on paper.

• 7:57Jen Cohen?

  No kidding.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  And just thought all disappear.

• 7:59Jen Cohen?

  If it wasn't for that, like that little decision point.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, you wouldn't know who I am.

• 8:03Jen Cohen?

  I would never know who you were. Like you sold the first one, what, for six million or something like, which is not nothing, which is great.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Twenty nine, thirty year old. Right. But it's not, you know,

• 8:10Jen Cohen?

  It's not billions of dollars. Like, and then like you bought this company, you bought the Mavericks from, how did that, Ross Perot?

• 8:17Speaker 02

  I was, yeah, he, he didn't care about basketball. It was a real estate deal for him. But I was a season ticket holder and somebody connected me and like in less than a month I bought it.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  I'm sure you didn't see the show.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yep.

• 8:30Jen Cohen?

  That's amazing. And so do you go to all the games?

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Unless my kids have something.

• 8:35Jen Cohen?

  Unless, well, don't the kids also want to go? Now they're probably, are they as obsessed with it as you are?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  My, my son is becoming more and more so. My daughter, my middle daughter likes it. My oldest daughter, it's just, yeah, just social. Yeah.

• 8:46Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, just for the social part. That's amazing. So, so, so basically right now it's the, it's the basketball and it's cost plus. Those are the two biggies.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Well, cost plus basketball, you know, except for free agency, basketball kind of runs itself.

• 8:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Were you at summer league just now?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I was there. Yeah. And I do it because I love it, right?

• 9:04Jen Cohen?

  Well, yeah, why do people go anyway? Like your level? Like, are they just going to see the players and all that stuff?

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it just depends. For me, I just like basketball. Yeah.

• 9:10Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, you're a different.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  But, um, yeah, you know, you've got to recruit and you've got to identify talent and all that kind of stuff. It's just like hiring programmers or hiring videographers or hiring producers or whatever.

• 9:21Jen Cohen?

  But you just like love it so much.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I enjoy it. Yeah.

• 9:23Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Wow. So what was the other, okay, I lost what I was going to say to you. Hold on. I think that's basically, well, where were we? Before I talked about the summer league, the thing, the, the, no, not, not the other thing too. What was the other thing I was going to ask you?

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Just about entrepreneurial stuff.

• 9:38Jen Cohen?

  Just entrepreneurial stuff. I don't even remember what I was going to say. Do you have anything else you want to say?

• 9:42Speaker 02

  What were we talking about? Entrepreneurial?

• 9:43Jen Cohen?

  We're talking about entrepreneurs' failure. I mean.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Habits. Sure.

• 9:48Jen Cohen?

  Sure.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  So for the.

• 9:51Jen Cohen?

  This is a mirror.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I know, I saw Shark Tank.

• 9:54Jen Cohen?

  I gotta put that over there. Yeah, exactly.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  We talked about like these companies not raising or not advertising and making margin. That's what you talk about a lot is like, what's your margin? Forget about the top line. Um, obviously with like Facebook and Instagram, there's been an opportunity for companies to scale using ads.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Well, it depends on how much money you have. So the question about, you know, spending money for advertising, whether it's search or other things, it depends what type of company you are. You know, I think for most entrepreneurial companies, particularly startups, that you have to know what sells your product. Now, if you're just trying to get scale and you're selling it direct to consumer, you're probably. You're going to have to advertise unless you find a better way to do it virally. Right. But you have to know what sells your product. Like with Alyssa's, you know, it's

• 10:46Jen Cohen?

  I love that you always use her.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's easy, right?

• 10:48Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Costco's drugs, it's easy.

• 10:50Jen Cohen?

  It's easy.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Right?

• 10:51Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  You know, we have another company, Wild Earth, which is vegan dog food. It's harder because you have to explain it.

• 10:56Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, the education piece is.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's an education piece, but the challenge now is because of the changes Apple made to privacy, getting a return on advertising spend ROAS is much more difficult.

• 11:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  And so you're having to become a lot more innovative in how you sell your products.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  You know, in streaming products, whatever it is, you've got to find what the most cost effective way to go is. Now, part of the challenge is that learning process. So I'm never a fan of selling, of spending a boatload. I'm a fan of test a lot.

• 11:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Test and retest, test and learn, because it always evolves. And spending for search engine advertising or Facebook ads, whatever it may be, YouTube, you're competing with everybody in your category. And that's getting the price higher and it's getting the returns lower in a lot of respects. So you've got to understand what the compelling aspect is for people to say yes.

• 11:51Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  You know, what is the path of least resistance for you getting someone to say yes? And you don't want to go all in. And the other thing I'll say for startups is I'm not a fan of brand advertising.

• 12:03Jen Cohen?

  You're not?

• 12:04Speaker 02

  No, not even a little bit. You earn your brand and your brand captures an identity based off of your execution. Right? What do you mean to your customers?

• 12:15Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  That is your brand. My, you know,

• 12:17Jen Cohen?

  Let the customers do it. Let, let the customers.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, the customers define your brand. If you're trying to show pretty pictures and people running on the beach and all this and you're kind of, you know, virtue signaling to your business.

• 12:29Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  That's typically a waste of money. Now, unless you're Pepsi or Coke or whatever and, you know, and then the other thing that I see a lot of companies make mistakes and they hire a marketing or finance, whatever, and they just do MBA 101.

• 12:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Right? This is what I learned in, you know, in finance or

• 12:48Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  entrepreneurship or my MBA classes. So this must be what you do.

• 12:52Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  No, right? Context matters a lot. You know, what's your competition doing? How do you differentiate yourself? And you always want to focus on your differentiation. Business is about selling two things. How you're different and why you're the path to least resistance. So the people have a reason to buy. And maybe you can encapsulate that is how do you reduce your customer stress?

• 13:14Jen Cohen?

  How about community now? I feel like everybody's doing two different things. One is they're trying to build a community, right? The other is attaching to a cause.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, having a mission is all good, right? And you know, community typically with NFTs, you see that, right?

• 13:28Jen Cohen?

  That's what I was like avoiding.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. But with community, again, it's got to be organic. And it's great to set up a Discord server or set up a Facebook group and have somebody that you work, that works for you or you even, I try to do it myself, a lot of cases.

• 13:44Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Be responsive to everybody because you get to learn about your customers.

• 13:47Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  So community is great, right?

• 13:49Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  And it should be part of every business. That to me, that's part of the blocking and tackling.

• 13:54Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  You know, it's like answering your emails or having an info email address.

• 13:58Jen Cohen?

  Right. That's so, okay, so that's actually, I mean, that's interesting because I found like that's the hardest part for, for companies to do is build that community, right?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it takes time, but it takes happy customers because it can work against you too.

• 14:10Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, because if your customers are not happy, you're toast.

• 14:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Because that community is just going to turn on you so fast.

• 14:15Jen Cohen?

  100%, especially now, you know?

• 14:23Jen Cohen?

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• 15:00Jen Cohen?

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• 15:50Jen Cohen?

  So, okay, this is the area I'm not great at this area. So I'll just I'll like fake it a little bit here. But like the whole cryptocurrency Bitcoin blockchain, NFTs. So I so the whole, by the way, I had a lot of money in Voyager also.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too.

• 16:06Jen Cohen?

  A lot. So is it gone now?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  No, I don't think it's gone. No. It's not. You might not get all of it back. So if you had US dollars, USD, you'll get it all back.

• 16:13Jen Cohen?

  I will?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. So not USDC, but USD. There's two different things. USD was stored was in a bank account. USDC is still considered crypto.

• 16:23Jen Cohen?

  Oh, really?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:24Jen Cohen?

  Okay, because that's like I was mortified. I don't know. I got to check now because I just found out, obviously, a couple of days ago about this. I was like mortified.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, it's hard.

• 16:34Jen Cohen?

  The whole thing because also it was it was such height. It was such it was so hype.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  They made a mistake. I mean, it's like, look, I've been investing a long time and I've seen companies make mistakes for things that were supposed to be riskless.

• 16:44Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

• 16:47Speaker 02

  And I mean, nothing's ever riskless, right?

• 16:49Jen Cohen?

  But close enough.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I remember I had a bank call me. I had a lot of money in the bank and fortunately they called me and said, this bank's about to go under. And so you better pull your money out now. And so, you know, I was fortunate, but unfortunately Voyager did a deal with this company called 3AC, Three Arrows Capital, and that it looked good on paper, but the company basically lied about their finances. And wow. Yeah, because Voyager is a public company in Toronto. I actually even own stock. I bought stock, you know.

• 17:19Jen Cohen?

  So did I buy it. I'm Canadian too, so from Toronto.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Toronto, yeah. So I bought stock in the company on the Toronto Exchange thinking, okay, you know, but when 3AC went bankrupt. It was just had that contagion, but you know, in, in reading all the filings, um, basically what Voyager is saying is, you know, we, we have, we have the USD is cash in the bank at their bank, right?

• 17:43Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  And so if you have that, you'll get a hundred percent back. The USDC and crypto, it really depends on how much they're able to collect from, um, from

• 17:52Jen Cohen?

  This that one I have?

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. What's that?

• 17:54Jen Cohen?

  I have the other one, not the one I'm going to get back.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, the USDC. Yeah. And I had a lot of USDC there too.

• 17:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Cause it was making eight and a half percent.

• 18:02Jen Cohen?

  It was making, exactly.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, and this is why I was making eight and a half percent.

• 18:06Jen Cohen?

  Yep, exactly.

• 18:08Speaker 02

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

• 18:27Jen Cohen?

  Oh, really?

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then what they're, what they've said in their filings and in public that they're going to try to do is for the other thirty or forty percent, they're, because they're bankrupt, the old stock that I own is worth, is worthless, right?

• 18:38Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  They'll try to, in the new company, they'll, um, recreate it and give stock and, um, tokens to those people to, hopefully, if it turns out to be worth any same thing, make up the delta.

• 18:50Jen Cohen?

  Wow. So what do you, okay. So I mean, obviously you're like very involved, you're, you, you invest in a lot of this stuff. People like me and probably a lot of more, I, I would say a majority of the population don't really understand this whole idea, but then what happens is we, we get like not pressured, kind of pressured.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's like anything else. Everybody's making money.

• 19:08Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. Everyone's making all, everyone's like telling me this like crazy monopoly money. So then I feel like I'm, I'm missing out.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:14Jen Cohen?

  And then I put a bunch of money in.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  You gotta fight, you gotta fight that feeling.

• 19:17Jen Cohen?

  I, tell me about it.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Now you know, yeah.

• 19:19Jen Cohen?

  And so the question is like, is there a way to educate people properly? Because

• 19:24Speaker 02

  You just gotta do the work.

• 19:24Jen Cohen?

  And I mean, I knew you were going to say that, but

• 19:26Speaker 02

  There's just no shortcuts. I wish there were.

• 19:27Jen Cohen?

  There, this is one area that you're

• 19:29Speaker 02

  So one, one difference between, look, stocks are the same way.

• 19:32Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Right? So if you look at your stock portfolio, if you have any tech stocks at all.

• 19:36Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  It's gotten crushed.

• 19:37Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Everything's getting crushed.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's It's gotten crushed as much as Bitcoin or Ethereum, right? So you always have to ask yourself, is the company a good company? You know, or is the value, because part of the problem with the tech stocks is their valuations went too high because interest rates were so low. And so people had nowhere else to put their money. So they put it into crypto and they put it into high flyer and tech stocks and other things, right?

• 19:56Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  And when interest rates have been going up over the last few months, it's like, okay, well, I can earn two or three or four percent. Why am I going to take the risk on the, on crypto or on these stocks?

• 20:05Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  So I'll just yank it out and you know, Amazon has fallen, what 50, 60, 70% Netflix 70 or 80%. Yeah, everything has gotten destroyed. Even Apple has gone down 30 some percent. And so, you know, there's no way you can predict all of that, you know, this just doesn't matter who you are.

• 20:22Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Stocks don't always just go up, even though it feels like it. And it's the same with crypto, but you, for me with crypto, um, there's two types of crypto tokens. One is store of value, which is really only Bitcoin and that's kind of like gold. You know, there's all kinds of narratives that say, well, if you hold gold, when there's heavy inflation, um, the price of gold will go up.

• 20:43Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Price of gold has gone down during all this inflation. And so that's bullshit, but it's a narrative that gets people to buy.

• 20:49Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  And it's the same with Bitcoin, you know, there's only 21 million going to be made. So if there's inflation, you, you know, don't have to worry about, that hasn't worked either. But the reality is those store values are just about supply and demand. If there's more people buying than selling, the price goes up.

• 21:05Jen Cohen?

  Right, exactly.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  If there's more people selling than buying, the price goes down. Now, good news with both gold and Bitcoin is most people just hold them and wait it out. That, that's one kind of crypto. The other kind are just tokens and you know, like Ethereum and.

• 21:18Jen Cohen?

  You have, doesn't you, you guys use Doge?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Dogecoin, yeah, Dogecoin is just fun. Dogecoin is like the on-ramp for crypto.

• 21:25Jen Cohen?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  You can use it as to buy stuff and everything like you can go buy the Mav store.

• 21:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  And buy tickets and buy whatever, but you know, there's. It's it's like what I've said is just it's a better lottery ticket.

• 21:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  A lottery ticket because when the once you scratch it, if you don't win on your lottery ticket, it's over, at least with Dogecoin, it's got a chance still to go.

• 21:45Jen Cohen?

  That has a chance. So like, so how about NFTs? What's what's with this NFT?

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Like, it's the same thing.

• 21:50Jen Cohen?

  You told me about Chris, uh, what's his face? Chris?

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Chris Brown.

• 21:53Jen Cohen?

  Chris Brown. Do you see this? He has like a hundred million follower, 120 million followers on social media. He made an NFT.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  The singer, the singer?

• 22:00Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:00Jen Cohen?

  And he sold like, what they made, how many of these?

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, they made 300,000 followers.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like art.

• 22:08Jen Cohen?

  No, it's, yeah, no, I understand what it is, but I feel like everybody and their dog now is like doing one and having one.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's just, it's just like, you know, anybody who collected baseball cards.

• 22:18Jen Cohen?

  So is it the same?

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Same thing. Yeah, only a digital version of a of a collectible. That's it. And so, you know, if I buy, um, and if you want to see my NFTs, go to lazy.com slash M Cuban.

• 22:30Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  That's another company I started, right?

• 22:32Jen Cohen?

  I saw the, I was gonna ask you about this lazy one also. What is that?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  It's just a way you just go to lazy.com, set up an account, connect your wallets, and it's an easy way, you know, to put in your Instagram profile or at the bottom of an email, check out my NFTs, lazy.com slash M Cuban.

• 22:48Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I'm gonna check them out.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if you have NFTs in your wallet, it's a really easy thing to do.

• 22:52Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Um, but NFTs, you know, they're like any other collectible art, right? What makes a Picasso worth all that money?

• 23:00Jen Cohen?

  True, but at least that I'll have a Picasso, not like if I were to buy a print of the Picasso, it doesn't cost me anything. It costs me like 10 bucks, 20 bucks.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Well, it's the same thing, right?

• 23:08Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  But there are some certain prints of things that cost you a lot.

• 23:13Jen Cohen?

  True.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  You know, Andy Warhol.

• 23:14Jen Cohen?

  It's online, like, who cares? Like, wouldn't I rather have it on my wall?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Well, we'll think about it this way. If you run out of space on your phone.

• 23:23Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  And you have to delete pictures.

• 23:25Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  How painful is that?

• 23:27Jen Cohen?

  I don't like it.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  It's painful.

• 23:29Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Right? Because, oh, there's my baby, and there's this, right? There's value, just because it's digital doesn't mean there's not value.

• 23:36Jen Cohen?

  True.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  And if it's art from somebody that you respect or like, and, you know, you can, you can have it show up on your, um, screensaver, on your laptop, on your PC, on your phone. So, you know, it's just a collectible. And the fact that it's digital doesn't make it, digital doesn't make it any more or less valuable. Makes it easier to buy and sell, faster to buy and sell, but it comes down to supply and demand. You know, if nobody cares about Picasso.

• 24:00Jen Cohen?

  True.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  That Picasso is going down in value.

• 24:03Jen Cohen?

  Like, are you buying, you know how Snoop bought some area in Metaverse and like?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  No, I think that's a joke, yeah.

• 24:08Jen Cohen?

  What was, what is this?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  This, you know, in the Metaverse, you know, if you can get people to go there, um, and that's a place to, you know, congregate and hang out with your avatar. And I look at, I-

• 24:20Jen Cohen?

  Do you understand why it's so complicated?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get it. You know, and this Second Life and other places like that have been around forever. It's just that the technology has advanced.

• 24:27Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  But the idea of, you know, buying digital real estate in the Metaverse and thinking it's going to appreciate for some reason, other than just, you know, convincing somebody else to buy it. Yeah, I'm not sold on that.

• 24:40Jen Cohen?

  So you're not doing that. So what's the next way? Like, what's, what's the next thing we should look for?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Well, it'll be crypto, right? There's artificial intelligence, but that's way too complicated. That's a whole nother beast. But, um-

• 24:50Jen Cohen?

  Well, that's all happening, like everything is-

• 24:52Speaker 02

  For sure. AI is driving a lot. But, um-

• 24:56Jen Cohen?

  And that's one of the things you're really big in, you're right, you're investing a ton of-

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, because you gotta know it. Yeah, because I've gotta know it from my companies.

• 25:00Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  But, um, with crypto, it comes down to utility.

• 25:04Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Right? So like with the Dallas Mavericks, if you go to a Mavs game and you scan your ticket before the end of the first quarter, we're, for every game, we create a unique NFT. And you get it for free. You don't have to buy it. You get it for free. And if you go to MavsCollectibles.com, um, you can see what we have there. And if, once you've scanned your ticket in, you go to Mavs Collectibles, it'll be there waiting for you. You don't have to create a wallet or do all this other stuff. And you can buy them and trade them and sell them or, you know, whatever. Um, but whoever goes to the most games or collects the most, you know, will give you free tickets to a preseason game, right? And we don't say in advance what we're going to give you, right? We just try to reward you based off of what we see in the market and all that. So sometimes, like in this case, an NFT is a reflection of something you've done.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  And in our case with the Mavs, you've gone to a game and we want to reward that. And so, you know, by have, whoever had the biggest collection, I think we sent them a special jacket, you know, and just stuff like that. But we don't, we don't say, buy this so you can get a jacket. We say, you know, this tells us you're fandom because you're going to games.

• 26:07Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Because that's the behavior we want to reward more than anything.

• 26:10Jen Cohen?

  Wow, exactly.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Going to games and even watching a game. You know, so that's one element. And then, you know, there's other utility. It really comes down to crypto will start taking off again when you can use it for some level of utility. Right? You know, when, when iPhones first came out, people didn't think- Snapchat.

• 26:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, no way. Exactly.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  You know, they didn't think Instagram.

• 26:31Jen Cohen?

  Nope.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  But when those came out, you start saying, oh, I can use my phone for a whole lot more than

• 26:35Jen Cohen?

  TikTok.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I can use it for a whole lot more than just taking pictures and making phone calls.

• 26:40Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  You know, or going on the internet. And so that's an example of utility where there was an application that was so compelling, people needed that platform to use it. It was just like streaming. When we started streaming in 1995.

• 26:54Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  If you wanted to listen to the Chicago Cubs and you were in Dallas, the only way you can get those games was by getting a PC, downloading, you know, having to move all it was a pain in the ass.

• 27:05Jen Cohen?

  Absolutely.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Right. But people went through it because if you're a Cubs fan and you're at work, it was the only way.

• 27:10Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  And it'll be the same with crypto. So if there's an application that, you know, the only way I can do this application, then that's what it's going to take. And when that happens, you'll see crypto go boom again.

• 27:21Jen Cohen?

  Wow. Well, hopefully sooner than later, right?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Kidding, right?

• 27:24Jen Cohen?

  Like, no kidding. No, yeah, from your mouth to God's ears. And then one other thing about, well, actually, I wanted to ask you this only because I was curious when I was like doing all this research. How were you able to get into Indiana without finishing high school?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Because I was taking college, I was taking college classes.

• 27:40Jen Cohen?

  So don't you need to have like a college, a high school, you know?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when I dropped out, I went to the University of Pittsburgh, took classes there and they let me take those classes.

• 27:48Jen Cohen?

  Hmm. That's how you did it.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  That's how I did it. And then when I got to Indiana, I snuck into a gradual level statistics class.

• 27:55Jen Cohen?

  Oh, okay.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Got an A in it. And they thought I was in the MBA program when I was 18.

• 28:01Jen Cohen?

  Oh, that's.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  And I just kept on taking MBA classes and I was even tutoring people. It was insane.

• 28:05Jen Cohen?

  Oh, my God, that is so cute. You're so sly. What's your favorite book that you, well Fountainhead, right? Okay, that wasn't easy. I shouldn't have said that. Well, I shouldn't, I should pretend I didn't know.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  And that doesn't mean like I'm a big Iran advocate or anything. I just like.

• 28:17Jen Cohen?

  I loved Howard Work.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the whole thing, right? Howard Work is just the big old fuck you guy, right?

• 28:21Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I love him.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that's why.

• 28:23Jen Cohen?

  That's right. Okay. Other than, other than that, what's like your favorite business book? Besides yours?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, How to Win a Sportive Business. My little plug in there.

• 28:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. It's like 65 pages.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's easy to read.

• 28:34Jen Cohen?

  It's more like a pamphlet than a book.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I want it to be really easy to read and motivating.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  I don't know, probably always

• 28:42Jen Cohen?

  You read so much, so you have

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, always the last book I read typically.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Signal and Noise, which is a book about statistics, was good.

• 28:52Jen Cohen?

  Fun.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  The Master Algorithm, which is about AI, was good.