Anthony Pompliano 0:00
It feels like there’s kind of two buckets right here, right? There’s people who are worried about surviving through this. And obviously, then the cash was just there. And it’s gonna dictate a lot of that. And then there’s others that are kind of did the hard work already. They did the discipline things in the good times, they’ve got strong balance sheets, and they’re actually getting aggressive now they’re going to go steal market share when others are attracting.
Mark Cuban 0:18
Yeah, you’re in a good spot, right? I mean, there’s some companies that are doing well, you know, some companies that are doing decent, and I’m telling, you know, those I’ve invested in ramped it up, right, because the cost per clicks, the cost per customer acquisition have gone way down, you know, YouTube prices, Facebook prices, Google that, you know, across the board, Twitter, they’ve all just dropped like a rock.
And so if you can afford to go after, and you have a vision for what your company is going to be like, right? Because you got to know a 2.0 what your what, what you’re all about where you’re making your money and how you’re going to do it. So if you have that confidence in your product, and your service, go, go go go put the pedal to the metal and don’t stop to get where you’re at.
Anthony Pompliano 0:56
Yeah, you keep mentioning kind of America. 2.0 maybe elaborate. Just like What exactly does that look like? In your mind? Is this an acceleration of trends are already underway? is there other things that change? Like, what’s different?
Mark Cuban 1:06
A lot of respects? Yeah, the things that, you know, the things that caught people’s attention before or you know, now are just right in your face, you know, how do you treat your employees? What’s your brand represent? How do you treat your customers? You know, how do your customers brand themselves? And how do you fit into that? So those are all elements of 2.0.
But again, if there’s something that you think could be better, if there’s a better product, if there’s a better service, what is right, you know, I’m all about robotics and precision medicine and artificial intelligence, you know, what is it that I can do there? I’m about you know, when we create medicines in this country, we typically have them manufactured overseas. And there are a lot of problems with them being counterfeit, not being as pure as they’re supposed to be.
And that created all kinds of illnesses and challenges, you know, so we’d already started creating some companies to address that, you know, how can I accelerate those companies like no, duh, Ai or AI? Oh, rather that, you know, for artificial intelligence, the big companies, the fangs, the Googles, the Netflix, the Amazons, they already have that code, right.
They’re investing billions, thousands of AI engineers, and they’re pushing that envelope, all the small to middle sized companies, they typically don’t even understand AI. And so we’re going to walk into America 2.0 with a lot of haves and have nots, the big companies are going to know how to go to work and put their their balance sheets to work, the little companies are going to have to try to figure out how and where they fit with AI and new technologies.
And so, you know, if you’ve got a vision of how to put these new tech technologies to work, and something you think should be just radically different, and you just got to go for it. And so I think there’s going to be a lot of great companies created. What’s it all gonna look like when it’s all said and done? I don’t know. But that’s the opportunity. Right? You know, that’s why I’m trying to just visualize where do I see it? What do I think I need to do? How can I help? How can I change the game? And you know, just be agile?
Anthony Pompliano 3:05
Yeah, I think a lot of people are kind of gravitated towards you on Shark Tank, because you really hammer home like this idea of the American spirit and entrepreneurship and innovation. And that’s like, built what we have today, right? It’s built the greatest country in the world.
It feels like in times of crisis, kind of the saying, if there’s no capitalists in a crisis, right, we get more towards the, the other end of the spectrum, maybe talk a little bit about like, how do we ensure that we keep true to the roots of innovation and ingenuity and entrepreneurship and kind of use the American spirit to come out of this? That’s what we are,
Mark Cuban 3:34
right? That’s in our DNA. That’s what makes us different than any other country on the planet. You know, I mean, you don’t see, you know, countries build around entrepreneurship, like you see in the United States of America, right? They don’t talk about the French dream, or the Iranian dream, right. We talk about the American dream, and that’s why you see so many people come to this country. Even when you look at some of the greatest companies created over the last 20 years.
They were started by immigrants who came here. Knowing that this was the best country in the world to start a business, that’s not going to change. But, you know, you have to pay attention to what’s happened. You have to understand context. You know, Bernie Sanders didn’t have a movement for no reason. Right? There were a lot of people who questioned capitalism, there are a lot of people who want stronger rights for workers, and deservedly so there’s a lot of people who rightfully want a higher minimum wage.
You know, there’s, I went back for some of my, for my companies that, that I run and ask the question, are any of my employees getting government assistance? Because to me, that’s the ultimate socialism, when I’m taking money when my employees are taking money from the government because I’m not paying them enough. And so I wanted to rectify that. And so, you know, for capitalism to continue to thrive.
When we come out of this, it’s going to have to be a lot more compassionate. You’re going to have to put employees first you’re going to have to put shareholders last, you know, and that’s going to be good for business because how you treat your employees and customers is how your, your brand is going to be defined forever. You know, Your people are not going to want to be associated with a company who just who had money in the bank and just ditched all their employees.
You know, and even if your backs against the wall and your company was broke, and you had to lay or furlough or fire everybody, if you communicated with them, and we’re honest and transparent, then people understand that because you as an entrepreneur, CEO, you’re getting crushed just as bad.
You know, and so everybody’s in the same boat, but you know, how you do things. Now, if you don’t show compassion, if you’re not nice, if you’re not understanding, if you don’t offer equity to employees, as an example, if you don’t recognize you’re gonna have to pay people more to keep them on, then you’re gonna be challenged.
Anthony Pompliano 5:39
Yeah, and we’ve seen this before, right? I mean, companies that I’ve seen strong cultures took care of their employees, they’ve always, you know, tended to do well, people really write books about it, because it’s so rare. And now I think what you’re basically saying is, hey, everyone’s gonna have to start to put this as a core tenet of what they’re building.
Mark Cuban 5:53
Without question. I mean, look, every single person who’s on social media, which is pretty much everybody 40 and under right You know, if not older and under, you know, that’s our brand. What we put on social media is who we are. And it’s what we want everybody to see about us. And the products that we discuss the products that we show in our pictures, you know, the things that we say and do.
Those all represent who we are. And if you’re not a product that has a good culture that if you don’t, you know, think of more than just the bottom line. People aren’t going to connect to you. People aren’t going to get behind you. And you’re not going to have a company you’re not gonna have a business you’re going to be gone. So the bigger picture is, capitalism has to be compassionate, but that’s good business. Yeah, for
