Mark Cuban: What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About AI (#319)

3 Takeaways™

In this episode of Three Takeaways, Mark Cuban shares his insights on AI, entrepreneurship, and the importance of curiosity and effort. Drawing from his

Key takeaways

AI is not replacing humans but empowering them; it's a tool that democratizes access to knowledge and enables anyone to learn anything quickly.

Main topics

AI as a transformative yet misunderstood technology
The role of curiosity and continuous learning in innovation

Notable quotes

"Don't be afraid of AI. Use it. Have a conversation with it."

Conclusion

Mark Cuban encourages listeners to embrace AI as a tool for growth, stay

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) 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? Speaker 2 (0:24) 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 Speaker 1 (0:40) us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Speaker 2 (0:46) 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? Speaker 1 (1:26) 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. Speaker 2 (1:59) You learn faster than almost anyone else. When you're trying to understand a completely new field, how do you approach it? Speaker 1 (2:08) RTFM, read the freaking manual. I mean, I literally try to consume every single thing that I can. You know, 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 it's 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. Speaker 2 (2:49) 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. Speaker 1 (2:59) Yeah, I don't know if I read the whole thing cover to cover, but I found the good articles and pictures. Speaker 2 (3:05) What is something that you've become less certain about as you've gotten older? Speaker 1 (3:10) 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. Speaker 2 (4:03) Wow. So one of the reasons that you sold your majority interest in the Mavs was so you could focus on cost plus drugs? Speaker 1 (4:11) Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we launched in January of 22 and I sold in December of 23. Wow. Speaker 2 (4:19) What is one belief about success you've had to unlearn? Speaker 1 (4:23) Oh, my God, you're hitting me with all the good ones. It's not about power. People who look at success as being equivalent to power. I think are going to be very disappointed and unable to accomplish the things they truly set out to accomplish. I've always looked at success as being able to wake up in the morning with a big old smile, excited about the day. You know, like I said, I started when I was broke. But I was still having fun, right? I was still excited. I was motivated. And even as I got more financially successful and I didn't have to worry about bills any longer, I still wanted that competitive juice. I still wanted to compete. And so I really had to, again, get out of that comfort zone and just go for it. Speaker 2 (5:06) You've made many major decisions that people doubted at the time. What was the first one that looked wrong for years before people realized it was right? Speaker 1 (5:17) Oh, the streaming industry. I mean, if you can go back to 1994, 1995, when the Internet was just getting started and I tried to tell people, well, OK, you've got these PCs and you're going to connect to the Internet. If you don't know what the Internet is, a big old connectivity between millions, hundreds of millions of PCs. And at one point, you're going to start listening to things like you do on the radio. And not long after that, you're going to be watching things like you do on TV. And don't be surprised if streaming,