April 15, 2020

Mark Cuban for President | Mark Cuban on the Pomp Podcast

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Key Takeaways

• “You got to be agile, you got to be resilient…it’s not going to be easy…aggressiveness, hustle, grind, those are going traits of small businesses that do well”
• If you can afford to spend it’s a great time to buy ads. Customer acquisition costs across social media channels (Twitter, Google, Facebook) have dropped across the board.
  • “If you have that confidence in your product and your service, go…put the pedal to the metal and don’t stop till you get where you’re heading” – Mark Cuban
• “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 and that’s going to be good for business.” 
  • How you treat your employees and customers during this crisis will define your company brand forever!
  • If you’re low on cash, consider paying your employees with equity
• If the government provides a company with a bailout, it should be seen as an investment, not a gift
  • “I want something in return…the American taxpayers deserve that” – Mark Cuban
• The news needs to talk more about good things such as innovative businesses, new products that are being created, what people want to do once this is over, etc.
  • “I want to hear about those visions because goddamnit if we went through all this shit, I want it to be for something”

Intro

•  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and investor on the TV show Shark Tank  
• Host – Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano (@APompliano)

Small Business Advice

• The state of small businesses isn’t good right now
  • “For most small businesses you’re living hand to mouth…it’s going to be tough for small businesses” – Mark Cuban
    • However, if you can survive this time while your competitors fall off, you’re going to be much better once this lockdown ends
      • “You got to be agile, you got to be resilient…it’s not going to be easy…aggressiveness, hustle, grind, those are going traits of small businesses that do well”
• Customer acquisition costs across social media channels (Twitter, Google, Facebook) have dropped across the board so if you can afford to spend it’s a great time to buy ads
  • “If you have that confidence in your product and your service, go…put the pedal to the metal and don’t stop til you get where you’re heading” – Mark Cuban

Investment Advice

• Mark’s core holdings are Netflix and Amazon
  • “Three years, five years from now the market will be up from where we are today” – Mark Cuban
    • Mark believes the market may still go down a bit this year so he’s storing cash to invest in either the public markets or private companies that will thrive in America 2.0
• Mark believes on a macro-basis, prices of commodities will go up because more companies will try start to invest in domestic production
• Land could be another good investment, prices in major cities are beginning to drop
  • “If you think you want to live in New York in the future, now’s the time to buy” – Mark Cuban
• Many colleges will go out of business soon so rethink which college you want to go and consider going to a community college for now then transferring to a bigger name school 
  • “As a current student, you need to look at this as the biggest investment you’re going to make over the next 10-15 years” – Mark Cuban
• Mark would like Bitcoin if it were more frictionless, right now you still have to convert it–Bitcoin is still dependant on fiat currency

America & Capitalism 2.0

• America 2.0 will have a lot of haves and haves nots
  • Big corporations are using AI engineers to become even more competitive while most small to middle-sized companies don’t even understand AI
• “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 and that’s going to be good for business.” 
  • How you treat your employees and customers during this crisis will define your company brand forever!
    • If you’re low on cash, consider paying your employees with equity
    • People will not want to work with a company who had money in the bank but ditched all of their employees
    • Even if you have to lay-off people, at least communicate with them honestly 
• America needs  to redo healthcare–most hospitals don’t know the costs for their surgeries
• The tax system will have to change
  • “We’re going to have to give serious consideration to a robotics tax” – Mark Cuban
    • To bring back jobs to the US, Mark believes more money needs to be invested in robotics to out engineer and innovate other countries
  • “I think we tax cloud computing”
    • Cloud computing is needed for AI programs by large corporations so it would be fair to tax them
• Just like after 9/11, the government created the TSA, after COVID-19, the government needs to provide sanitization to public areas or do something similar that will build confidence in the American people

Thoughts On Bailouts & Inflation

• If the government provides a company with a bailout, it should be seen as an investment, not a gift
  • “I want something in return…the American taxpayers deserve that” – Mark Cuban
    • Warren Buffett invested in Bank of America during their crisis and made a boatload of money from it
• All the contracts from bailouts will be transparent and published so everyone will be able to read what happened
• The government will also need to bailout transportation organizations such as the MTA in New York
  • “You have to do it otherwise it creates a cascading effect that could be far worse” – Mark Cuban
• Everyone thought the bailouts from 2009 will cause inflation but that never happened–will the 2020 bailouts cause inflation? No one knows
  • “Every economist will give you a different answer…but we’ll find out” – Mark Cuban

The News Needs To Focus On The Positives

• Mark avoids watching the news because he says it’s mostly “doom and gloom”
  • Most TV viewers are 65+ so it’s scaring the people most at risk even more
    • “I think we need to start talking more about what are you going to do on the other side” – Mark Cuban
      • The news needs to talk more about good things such as innovative businesses, new products that are being created, what people want to do once this is over, etc.
        • “I want to hear about those visions because goddamnit if we went through all this shit, I want it to be for something”
          • Don’t let all this suffering and death be for nothing

Additional Notes

• When Broadcast.com stock hit a certain number, Mark became worth a billion-dollar and he did a little dance to celebrate
  • “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever thought I’d get there so I did my little naked dance and got back to work” – Mark Cuban
• There will likely be a tradeoff between privacy and security much like what happened after 9/11
  • Having cameras everywhere isn’t fun but it does provide much more security to people
• Mark may run for President in 2024 if his family supports his decision
  • If he were President, Mark would appoint the best person for the position regardless of their political party

Pomp Podcast : advertising, bailouts, branding, business, college, investing, mark cuban
Notes By Alex Wiec