Mark Cuban: Supply and Demand-Undefeated
56:18 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling. And so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing. Cash back.

That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. ♪

There he is. What's up? How are you, man? Good. Wait, I think we're sideways, right? There we go. Yeah, you were sideways for a minute. It looked like you were in the International Space Station, and I liked it. Yeah, I feel like I'm in the International Space Station right now. Hello. Welcome to Literally. I'm very excited today to talk to Mark Cuban.

I remember Mark Cuban when he was the crazy jumping up and down on the sidelines, new punk kid, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. And now he is the king of the Shark Tank. And we know him from those headline-making areas of his life. But the truth of it is, this guy, his vision, I mean, this is a guy, you could argue, who kind of invented streaming. I mean, when you really, really do the deep dive on his history. And that's...

like saying, this is the guy who invented going to outer space. He's a wonderful dude. It's a great talk. Here we go. I do look like I'm on the space station, don't I? With this thing set up here in a hotel room. I know. Where are you right now? You're not in the space station. Where are you? I'm in Sacramento. Why? Because we have a game tonight. Oh, the Mavs, of course. Yeah. Of course. I was such a big basketball fan for so many, many, I had season seats at

And I was so happy when you bought the team and you brought them back. I appreciate that. I mean. Yeah, we tried. Yeah, we'll see what we get going. We got a big game these next two nights. We play Zach tonight and then Steph Curry tomorrow. Oof.

So it's going to be brutal. OK, so let's let's start there. What? So the modern NBA game. Right. It's so different. I watched classic, you know, classic sports and I watched Larry Bird Magic Garden game, you know, in like 86 or something. Yeah. It literally looks like a different it's a totally different game. One hundred percent. Do you prefer one over the other?

Yeah, I mean, look, I miss the beast in the paint battling out, beating the shit out of each other. Right. But at the same time, there's just so much more skill now than there used to be. You know, 21 years ago when I bought the team, when I was 12, you know, we could you could have guys on the court who couldn't shoot. Now that's not the case. You could have a guy that had a good motor, ran around a lot.

and maybe could rebound and that's all you needed to do. Just have that one skill, but now you have to be able to put the ball in the basket. Otherwise they just won't guard you and it'll make, it'll make it harder than everybody else. So I kind of liked the fact that everybody who's playing in the game has got to be skilled. That's probably the best answer I've heard. And I've talked to Steve Kerr about it. I've talked to magic about it. I've talked to Barkley about it. I've talked to, I mean, all kinds of people offline about it. That,

You know what? You might have brought me back into the fold. Come on back, Rob. Come on back. That's a pretty good explanation. But those guys all played back then too, right? So it was their era. Yeah. You never want to diss on your own era. As a fan, as an owner, it's harder now because you can't make any mistakes with players because everybody's got to be able to play. It's just so different.

I mean, it's always, you're always putting a guy who can, like you said, a guy who can shoot on the field. There'll be, there'll be times, you know, going into every, the end of every quarter where it was, the scrubs were out there every single game.

And now if you have scrubs, you know, it's probably your young guys that you're trying to develop, that you're just trying to get some time that maybe can't shoot. But, I mean, you've got 40 guys or more shooting 40% from three. It's just crazy. It's insane. I remember when, because like I said, I was a huge Laker fan, that if you pulled up on an uncontested three, Pat Riley would send, you'd be done. Done. Done.

I mean, that's where we all grew up. You know, you don't just shoot a three. You get the best shot. You get as close to the basket as you can. You know, if you get a 10 foot jumper, that's fine. But all that's changed. You know, the three now, you know, not only are they shooting the three, like when we when they first brought in the three, it was like like when I was a kid, you practice with your toe just behind the line because you don't want to shoot any deeper than you needed to. Yeah. Now.

you know, Steph and Luca, they're shooting five, seven feet behind a three point line. Like it's nothing, nothing. Do you think that they always could have done that? Had that been in the zeitgeist or are these guys just modern freaks?

No, I think they always could have. They just never worked at it. I remember like 2012, give or take, talking to Dirk and Vince Carter, who played for the Mavs then, saying, look, we've got some data. When you are shooting a foot or two behind the line, they're not guarding you and you shoot better.

But it was just so not natural to them. And then guys started practicing it and practicing it. And the same guys who five years ago would not have shot that shot. Now, like literally, we have all the Mavs practice shooting threes from five and seven and eight and nine feet behind the three-point line. And it's like, it's just another jumper for them. It's unbelievable. It's crazy. It's so, and that comes with the analytics of...

that the three-point hit-miss ratio works out better regardless, right? Yeah, because if you make 40% of your threes, that's 1.2 points per possession. So to do that at the equal of twos, you have to shoot at least 60% to balance that out. There it is. There it is. And, like, if you shoot 33% from threes,

That's equivalent of a shoot. You know, that's one per shot. That's equivalent of shooting 50 percent from twos. And 50 percent has always been a great shooter. Right. Being able to shoot 50 percent from anywhere, you know, inside two points is perfect.

perceived to be great. So, you know, guys now know if they can shoot 36, 37 percent, they're going to be OK. And now there are teams that are shooting 38, 39, 40 percent. It's just changed so much. It's bizarre. It's it's true. And baseball's the same. When I had kids, I don't know. I know you have young kids, too. I had to take a sabbatical from a lot of things because I just didn't have the time. And then I sort of reentered it and was like, wait a minute.

There's a shift in baseball? Wait, people legitimately open up an entire side of the field? What the hell? And nobody bunts? Yeah, and it's crazy because like I just saw something. I don't follow baseball near as much as I used to. But remember this thing they called the Mendoza line? Yes. So it was a guy named Mario Mendoza who played for my hometown, Pittsburgh Pirates. Yeah, of course. And he never hit over 200.

And the Mendoza line was like, if you hit over 200, you were above the Mendoza line. Now you have teams hitting at the Mendoza line. Yes. The entire team is betting like 2.2, you know, betting 200. And the league is betting like .232. And it's like all home runs and strikeouts. And it's crazy there, too. Yeah, all sports have changed. Football is the only one that seems kind of...

kind of the same as when we grew up. And I didn't really realize that you and I basically grew up in the same... I'm from Dayton, Ohio. You're from Pittsburgh. So we probably had all the same heroes, you know, Lin Swan and Terry Bradshaw. Yep. You know, we always hated the Bengals. Ohio people...

Never liked it. Well, they still don't like the Bengals. Nobody likes the Bengals. There's still no, but no. But does anybody like the Bengals? Not for Pittsburgh. That's for sure. No, no. But I was always I had I had my breakaway jersey. Remember when those were a thing? Yeah. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. A breakaway jersey. God, did I love having my. Those are cool because, you know, they were airy. Yeah. Yeah. Someone tore it. Right. You felt like you were running faster. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, of course, were you there for the Willie Stargell era? Yeah, yeah. When I was a kid, that's when he played. And so, yeah. So when I played, I remember back watching Pops. He was lefty. I was righty. But he used to always twirl his bat, right? He'd sit in the bag and twirl his bat. So yeah, I did his windmill. And so that's what I would do. I'd do my windmill. Oh, they hit a lot better than I did. I am desperately searching for footage of

of him hitting the ball out of Dodger Stadium. That's legendary. It is legendary. I remember that. I was told that he hit the 76 sign. I don't believe that. That can't be. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it was just incredible. He was so big. He was a big guy. You know, him and then Dave Parker were both huge. And that kind of changed baseball for a long time as well. Yeah, I love sports. I just, I love talking sports. It's the absolute best. Yeah.

I was going to ask you, okay, my sons are –

My sons are in, you know, tech and apps and startups and all of that stuff. My oldest is. And he said, I said, what do you want me to ask Mark? Because all my family are big fans of yours. And they're like, ask him about Dogecoin. I knew that was coming. You knew it was coming, right? I knew it was coming, right. And it's a great question. And it's funny because I was just doing some more research this morning. Because Dogecoin went from being a joke. Even the originators, the people who created it, like in 2013 or whatever it was,

Thought it was just a joke. It was just a play on everything that was going on. But they made some enhancements back then. And what's wild is that it went from being a joke to being a meme to just being popular, people trying to hype the value to nothing.

Excuse me, now people using it like a digital currency. Well, you accept it for Mavericks tickets, don't you? Yeah, and that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that people spend money with it. And, you know, we were doing, you know,

$10 a day, then a few hundred and then a few thousand a week. And, you know, it's kind of steadily grown up by big leaps and bounds, but just steadily grown. And I was talking, it's a company called BitPay. They do the gateway that allows you to spend either Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doja and some other ones in order to buy things wherever they're taken. And I was talking to him and he said his Doja, you know,

are just exploding. He was going to do like 6,000 in the month of April, which is enormous when you think that, you know, five months ago, this was just a total joke. And so, you know, I got into it because my 11-year-old son got into it and I wanted him to learn about cryptocurrencies and the stock market. So we set up an account on Robinhood and started using it to learn. And just then I, you know, figured out that I could take it for...

for the Mavs, for people to buy things. And people started buying things. You know, they didn't use Bitcoin. They barely used Ethereum to buy things, but they used Dogecoin all the time. And it's wild that it's really become something real. What? So it seems to me

That that is whatever, whether it's Bitcoin or Ethereum or any of whatever the brands are, that's got to be the wave of the future. It has to be. Why wouldn't it be right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you start digging in. It's just little things like should we go to a digital currency? What's the reason? Even if it's not an external, let's just say it's a United States, you know, digital currency that the country puts out from the Federal Reserve.

You know, we spend $80 million a year, I think, on pennies, you know, just to make the pennies. We spent like- You're talking to the expert on that. One of my great West Wing episodes was that my character, Sam Seaborn, wanted to get rid of the penny.

And it's the same thing. Sam was right. You know, get rid of the penny. The nickel is like 80, 85 million, a quarter cost the country like 110 million per year. And so that's one end of it. Then there's a sanitary side. Now, then there's just the physical dealing with it for retailers, which is expensive and for banks, which is expensive. And so don't you coin baby or, you know, a USDC, a United States digital coin and

And I think it's inevitable that we will go there. And then, you know, you look at when you have, you know, a pandemic or a tragedy or something, you know, a downturn, a recession or, God forbid, a depression. You know, we had all these stimulus payments. And if you didn't have direct deposit set up, then you had to wait for a check.

And so the Treasury had to cut the check, make sure that you were legit, cut the check. You had to get it. Then you had to deposit it. You had to wait for it to clear. And so the people who needed the money the most got it the slowest. If everybody had a digital bank account with or without digital coins, the money would just go just like that right into your account from the Treasury whenever there was a stimulus.

And if we're able to use digital coins, the ability to spend it and the transaction, the cost associated with it would drop significantly. And what's and what's the con? What's the negative that people who are sort of against it would would say? People don't want to change their habits. That's just about it. Yeah, that's it. You know, who's you know, who wants to know what a wallet is, a digital wallet is or wants to deal with setting up, you

You know, a new type of account. Just look, look at half the people after the first payment, the first stimulus payment from the government. The people who got checks didn't set up digital direct deposit. That tells you they're just people that are just resistant.

That's and it's not even a security hacking. No, you know, it's easier to steal your money. It's easier to steal your cash or to break into your, you know, to look, take your information with your credit card than it is to steal something from a digital wallet.

Who's going to be the Betamax and who's going to be the VHS? I don't think we know yet. I think it's way, way early. I mean, it's really like the early days of the Internet. If you go back to the mid-90s when things were just getting started, you just saw all these applications and you didn't know which one was going to be Amazon, which one was going to be eBay, which one was going to be PayPal, etc. You had to wait to see who the winners are. And it's the same now. Well, how do you I mean, you famously hedged your Yahoo, correct? No.

So how do you, had you not, your life might've been very, very different. Very different, right? So how do you, how do you hedge this?

I mean, you just don't get greedy. I mean, back then it was like, all right, you know, this is more money than I could ever dream of. And, you know, rather than trying to get more, I was all intent just to keep what I had. And I kind of take the same approach now, whether it's with cryptocurrencies or stocks or whatever it may be, you know, just don't get greedy. It's okay to take profits or it's okay to, you know, put a collar on where you protect yourself on the downside. You know,

It's when you try to squeeze out every penny where you get too excited. Like if Dogecoin goes to a dollar, you know, then my life is made. Well, sometimes you got to take profits to protect yourself. And GameStop, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's, again, as far as I can tell, started with a bunch of folks going, I like that place, man. That's cool. We don't want to let that go down. And with having no sense whatsoever of actually ever thinking about making a profit, it was more of a statement, a nostalgia play or no? Not really. No, no. So it's really interesting, Rob. Like there's a part of Reddit, a subreddit called WallStreetBets. Yes. And when...

Wall Street Bets started talking about GameStop. It wasn't huge like it became. It was some really geeky people that were just really into analyzing the stock and thinking it was undervalued, even though traditional Wall Street thought because it's got all retail stores and everything's going digital and retail is really hurt because of the pandemic, the people on Wall Street Bets thought,

thought, okay, this is undervalued at $2 and whatever, and wrote up some really detailed and in-depth analysis of why GameStop is a good buy. Why am I... Where did I get it in my head? And I read about it, that it was...

That there was no real analytic behind it at all. Because you saw people on CNBC and elsewhere say, well, if it's all retail investors, they must be wrong. And that's where all the...

The noise and the loudness was coming from people who are on a subreddit. How can a subreddit be smarter than all the experts that go on CNBC? How can real people be smart? Real people have no rights to do anything. They're the minnows. Yeah. You need to listen. They're the minnows. Yeah.

And the minnows won. And here we are months later, and it's $160 or whatever. And I'm pissed because when it was $50, I'm thinking, okay, maybe it'll drop down into the $20s because then I'll buy it. Never made it down there. And the reason I was interested, I went back. When something really takes off in the zeitgeist and people are talking about it, I'm like, okay, let me get to the bottom of it. Let me read up, whether it's DojaCoin, whatever. And so when...

Wall Street bets and GameStar started just exploding. I went through and I read some of the quarterly earning conference calls transcripts where the CEO and the CFO talked to the Wall Street analysts and have to tell the truth because it's, you know, SEC reviewed. And they start talking about their business. And the thing that was cool is,

for the December 20th quarter was they did over a billion dollars in online sales and they had grown like 300 percent. And I'm like, OK, so here's a company at that time at 50 dollars that had a six billion dollar market cap for the stock plus two billion in debt. So eight billion. And they did a billion in digital sales. So eight times sales. That's less than

30, 40, 50 different software companies on that are public trade for right now. So versus some of their peers and other software companies, they were cheap. And so I got greedy, which always backfires. I got greedy and decided to wait for the price and tried to time it out. And, um,

And made a mistake. So now if you look at it, let's say at the price of 50, now it's three times that. So now, you know, it's trading at 24 with they've had another quarter. So maybe 12 times sales, give or take. I don't know for sure. And that's not even outrageous. And compared to some of the peers.

And a lot of this has to do that with the fact that interest rates are so low and there's no other place for people to put money. So they put it in stocks, in cryptocurrencies and baseball cards or whatever. But the net of it is that

Regular people can do smart things. And we saw it in the mid-90s with the internet where I remember starting streaming and people just laughed at me and said, why the hell would I ever stream anything when I can turn on a radio or TV? You dumbass, you're going to lose your ass with this. But I could see what was coming. And it's the same now. Why would anybody trust retail investors to know more? Well, they've got the power of...

The power of the crowd, the wisdom of the crowd, where people working together can move faster than big, you know, centralized banks. And I think, you know, the game is changing and cryptocurrencies trading even more. I mean, we talk about Dogecoin, but there's this thing called decentralized finance where you can make a whole lot more money investing in

by loaning your cryptocurrencies and making 4, 5, 10, 20% interest, depending on how much risk you're willing to take, versus making 0.02% interest in a savings account. There it is. There it is. Hold that thought. We'll be right back.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Hear that sound? Burlington's ringing in the deals on back-to-school style. Find top brands, low prices, and lots of school wear and gear.

Grab a backpack, kick off the school year with new shoes, and get a lesson in saving from Burlington. Because with up to 60% off other retailers' prices every day, the math is simple. Get more, but spend less. Now get to your store today. Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow. Styles and selections vary by location.

It's funny, we started talking about how sports is changing. Now we're talking about how finance is changing and investment is changing. It's got to be exciting to be where you're at right now. I mean, how much of your day is spent, I mean, probably all of it, but in like all of the different pies that you have your finger in, which pie gets the most fingering? How about that as an analogy? Yeah.

It's a very provocative analogy, but it kind of works. Yeah. Hey, American pie. But, you know, it's interesting because all of them are fundamentally built on technology, whether it's basketball. You know, you talk we talked about shifts in baseball and batting percentages.

You know, it's because pitchers are now using technology to completely analyze their pitching motion, their mechanics. And they're tweaking it to a level now where hitters can't keep up. And that same concept is, okay, when you deal with new technologies, cryptocurrency, online sales, whatever it may be, how does the technology impact what's happening in the business world? And, you know, decentralized finance is one thing.

Crypto, artificial intelligence. I mean, basically my public company investment theme now is what I won't invest in a company unless I think it's one of the leaders in artificial intelligence.

Because, you know, if you look at the biggest market cap companies in the world, they're the ones that are best at artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is really, really hard and really, really expensive. But if you look at Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Netscape, Apple, etc., they're great at AI. And AI is touching everything, but not everything that's being touched is good at AI.

What – it's funny. My son, who I keep referencing, my oldest son, graduated law school and then decided he didn't really want to practice law. And one of the things he thought about because he was going to be an entertainment lawyer and an entertainment lawyer, there's a lot of transactional law. And one of the things he keeps saying is that AI –

Is going to wipe a lot of that out because, you know, 80, you know, the A.I. will move it to the goal line and then you'll have a lawyer look at it for an hour and you're done. So he saw this disruption coming in that. Are there other what areas if you in the next five years, what what do you see changing that we would be we would find remarkable? I mean, like if I look back when I was a kid, it was more than five years, obviously, but like.

Let's go to the Dayton Mall. Well, the Dayton Mall is now used for storage. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's crazy. I know exactly what you're saying. Like, what's going to happen? Every generation has significant technology changes, right? And one builds upon the other. You know, something like TikTok. You know, the thing about TikTok, as an example, is not so much that the dances are unique or anything else. It's the way they use artificial intelligence.

You know, traditionally in social media, when you go to Instagram, you see a feed for the most part of people you follow and things you like. When you go to Facebook, for the most part, you know, the news feed will be different, but you see the people you follow and your friends. With TikTok, they look at what you actually watch. They'll suggest something and they don't really care who you follow personally.

You know, they care what you like, but they even care more about how often you watch something. So if you watch a basketball highlight, and let's just say there's a Luka dunk or a Luka, you know, shot, game-winning shot, and you watch that three, four, five, seven times, and then the next thing you watch is a basketball highlight, and you watch that three, four times, they realize that, you know, you like basketball highlights of this one particular type, and they're like,

And regardless of who you follow, that's how they'll feed you what you want to watch. And that makes it addictive, particularly in short little bursts. Now, we're going to have to learn how to apply that to watching games because, you know, my 11-year-old son, my 14-year-old daughter, my 17-year-old daughter, they don't watch complete anything.

you know, let alone a complete sporting event. They'll just wait for the highlights and they know Luka and Steph Curry and John Moran, you know, Zion Williamson, the youngest players too, not because they've watched him play in a game, you know, or a full game, but because they've seen him on TikTok and to a lesser extent Instagram.

And so that's one thing that's going to change. I think how we consume games via video is going to be driven by social media where you might get the first five possessions of a Mavs-Laker game. Then you might get an interview with Luka or LeBron, and then it'll go back to a possession in the game because there were dunks and you like dunks. I think that's one thing. I think, you know, I got this one business that just got pitched to me a couple of days ago.

And they use AI as a chatbot for personal discussions, you know, for people who are lonely. And the results were, I was like, what the? People were spending hours talking to these chatbots because they just wanted somebody who will talk to them for an extended period of time. And, you know, there's this thing called GPT-3, which is an open AI type open source software

program that is really getting good at evaluating and responding to all different types of questions. And that's only going to advance. We're still way early. And as processors get faster and the AI gets better, you're going to see bots that people become close to and connect to. You're going to see virtual humans. I just invested in a company, virtualhumans.org.

And that's all they do. They create virtual humans. And I anticipate that we'll be combining those with, you know, this natural language processing and chat body. And you'll have virtual people that you talk to. It's it'll seem it seems really, really crazy right now. But for a 14 year old kid, I think that type of progression is going to seem natural. That's beyond crazy sounding, but but also makes perfect sense.

Yeah, it does. You know, the one thing that goes forward, things keep on getting faster, things get more efficient, and AI gets smarter. And I'm not talking about AI taking over the world. You know, there's ways to prevent that, and we'll be smart enough, I hope, to prevent that. But, you know, it's going to become more personal, and that's going to be weird in so many ways.

Well, you know, it's we used to have to go to college to get knowledge. Right. Like the only way you got it was you somebody gave it to you or you went to the library and you define the book and put it and then you had to memorize it. So I kind of wonder why does anybody go to college at all if that's.

In all seriousness, you just go, if somebody sits in a business meeting and says, you know, which was the 31st state? You just fucking Google it. So I just am not really sure. I'm not actually, I'm actually not kidding. What is the benefit of traditional education in the way it's been for two, 300 years? Yeah. Have you know, 11, 14 and 17 year old, they asked me that same question when there's, you know,

they don't like. And my answer always is you have to learn how to learn. And that's a process. And, you know, when you're in, you know, middle school and then high school, you know, your peers are local and you kind of have personal relationships with everybody. And they personalize how

helping you learn how to learn. And that's a good thing. Then you get to college and you get to expand your horizons and get tested more by hopefully smarter people challenging you because learning in a more competitive environment and learning across your potentially four years as things change, I think that's good. I think there's a benefit there. The problem though is the cost.

And because it's so prohibitively expensive and we're looking, you know, I don't see that changing. And even the idea of free college will probably bastardize it and make it even more expensive. But I do think that we need...

If the cost stays where it is, there'll be private scenarios where that will make more sense because there's no reason why Mark Cuban and Rob Lowe can't start their own college just focused on acting in business and then go to local businesses and say, well, you accredit these graduates for and hire them. Because, you know, the whole thing that makes or breaks a college is the whole accreditation system. And that's meaningless in my mind.

And so if we were able to go to local or regional companies or national companies and say, hey, here's our curriculum. You're more than free to participate in it. We're charging kids just enough to cover our costs. If you want to create scholarships that give you the first right to hire these people, great. But

I think, you know, college as we know it should change. And I think you're going to see more and more private schools do that. And, you know, there are companies that are doing more private-based education. And really what surprised me more than anything is why people will go to the most expensive colleges rather than going to colleges that, you know, they don't have to borrow as much money. I mean, listen, I wrote the check for Stanford and Duke.

You're talking to a guy who knows. Yeah, my daughter's looking at both of those schools. And they're fantastic. And that is why, you know, there's nothing like that experience. There's nothing like the people, the peers that you're going to have relationships with for the rest of your life. And those are the reasons. But the notion of fact-based learning, when all of the facts of the universe are in your pocket. Yeah, there's...

Yeah, there's no good reason to have to memorize everything. I mean, look, you want to memorize. If you're going to be in business, you've got to know what internal rate of return is. You've got to memorize that as to a certain extent because you've got to at least try to put it into practice. You know, if you're going to do law, you've got to memorize some laws. But I agree with your point wholeheartedly. There are better ways, and they're out there, and some people are doing it, but we just have to make them more ubiquitous. And as a pioneer in that and a thinker in that way, as your kids are starting to navigate it,

Have you been surprised by anything? Yeah, that's a great question. What's your takeaway from your own personal experience with your kids going through that sort of factory? So I'll give you an example. I

I've always been big on reading and I've always tried to motivate my kids. My wife and I have tried to motivate our kids by bribing them. You get more screen time if you read. You get some shoes. You want those Jordans? You got to read four books, literally what we did with my daughter a couple months ago. And it helps some, but there was one day my dad asked me, my dad, my son asked me about Shark Tank. He goes, Dad,

why don't you like to do royalty deals? I'm like, what do you know about royalty? Do you know what a royalty is? And he's like, yeah, it's when you get a percentage of sales from a company. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. And I'm like, well, I don't like royalties as much because I think it hurts gross margins. Do you know what gross margins are? He goes, yeah, that's what's left over after you sell something minus your cost of goods. And I'm like, Jake, dang, how did you learn this? And he's like,

I learned it on YouTube. You know, I saw some YouTube videos. I saw some Shark Tank. Like none of my kids will actually watch the show Friday nights on ABC. Of course not. 8 p.m. Eastern. But they'll watch the YouTube and the highlights are on Hulu. Yeah. My kids don't watch anything I'm on. Of course not. Nothing. And so anyways, I'm like, how did you learn this stuff? And he's like, YouTube videos.

He'd watch some Shark Tank clips, not whole episodes, and there'd be something he'd understand. He'd search for it on YouTube. There'd be something that explained it. And it made me realize that

Not just his age, but Gen Z in general, my 14, my 17-year-old, and even kids that we're seeing coming to the NBA at 19, 20 years old, they don't learn by reading the way we used to. Like you said, we used to have to go to a library, find a book, get a magazine, whatever, to learn something. I remember sitting in bookstores and reading books I couldn't afford just to try to learn some things about computers. And

They get everything via video. And so how kids learn today is night and day different than how we grew up. And the hard part for us as adults, and particularly in the industries I'm in, where you've got young kids as programmers or developers or designers or athletes, it's a different beast trying to connect to them and know what it takes to motivate them and educate them. Well, and that in my business,

It's because my business is totally predicated now on that demographic. And you can see people's, you can see the struggle. It's everywhere. I mean, people... And that code is so hard to crack because it's such a moving target because technology is moving so quickly. The minute you figure out, oh, this is what they like, everybody's on to something else, a new way of learning, a new way of consuming. But the good news is that's opportunity, right? That's why I say, yes, 100%. I mean, I always...

You know, I always whenever the shit hits the fan, I always look at that as an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I tell my wife all the time. Like, you know, when the stock market was cratering because of the pandemic, I'm like, babe, this is the world series of investing time. This is when the pros go to work, you know, when there's blood in the streets and when there's significant change like cryptocurrency. Yeah.

you know, NFTs and all this smart contracts on blockchain, they're game changers. But, you know, when you start to see the opportunities that they create, either you dig in and you learn them or you're going to get blown by. You get blown by. NFTs. So tell me, talk to me about NFTs. I know you're doing, are you doing a thing with Snoop and Ashton? Yeah, we did already. Yeah. Oh, it's already. Oh, okay. So NFTs, walk me through. Okay. What should be my NFT? Yeah.

Tell me, tell me how to do my own NFT, please. Yeah. So an NFT is just a digital collectible. It's no different than a physical collectible. Only it's digital. You know, think about everything that's on your phone that you value. So it's not unusual to value something that's digital. Right. You know, and so if you put aside all the technology, it's just a digital collectible. And in order to create a digital collectible that someone else might want to collect, you

You have to take something you own, you know, anything. It could be a picture of it. It could be a digital file. It could be a video. It could be a GIF. And you have to take it through a process called minting. Minting gives it a unique identity that it then stores on something called a blockchain.

And that storage of that identity on the blockchain is what makes it unique and makes it sellable as a non-fungible token NFT. And then from there, just like there used to be baseball card stores that we went to, just like you could buy baseball cards on eBay, there are marketplaces, OpenSea, Rarible, Mintable.app.

top shots that sell NFTs and you just go to those marketplaces. So if Rob Lowe wanted to create something, let's just say it's a picture of you and Aaron Sorkin that no one else has ever seen before from the first day of shooting of West Wing. And you wanted to turn that into an NFT because West Wing fans and Rob Lowe fans and Aaron Sorkin fans would like to

to own that unique collectible, then you would just do just what I just said. You'd take that digital copy of that picture and you'd mint it and then you'd host it on one of the marketplaces and then you'd have a collector, you'd let people know on your social media and you

The collectors who are your fans and West Wing fans would then come in and buy it and have it on as a collectible. And then actually I created a little program with one of the folks, guys who works with me, Jesse, and it's called Lazy.com, the lazy way to show off your NFTs. And so because there's no way I bought a bunch, you know, I'll go through these different sites and I'll look for art.

digital art that I think is really unique and really cool. And I won't spend a lot of money. I might spend up to a couple hundred dollars to buy it. But then I had a bunch of these and

And there was no way to show them off. So I created lazy.com. So if you wanted to see all the digital collectible stuff I have, if you go to lazy.com slash mcuban, you can see all my collectibles and I can also sell them on there. So that's how Rob could do it. Well, that's what I was going to ask you is if one didn't know about lazy.com or it didn't exist.

So you invest in it. Where do you show it to people? Is it on your phone? I mean, it's how do you know? It's just like on a website. I mean, it's just like, how do you get someone to look at a baseball card? But a baseball card analogy, you have the baseball card. Well, you do and you don't. Right. You have if it's a collectible, you probably have it in a plastic container or a plastic container.

holder so that it doesn't get all messed up, right? And probably if it's worth anything, you have it in a safe. So you can't see it, you can't show it and no one can touch it because the minute they do, it goes down in value. And if you want to sell it, you have to physically take that, get it graded, find some place to sell it. Then you have to ship it. They have, you have to hope they get it. Okay. Then they have, you have to hope they agree with the grading and, and that they don't give you a hard time on eBay or wherever. Yeah.

Whereas an NFT, if you were to take a picture of that same baseball player in that same pose, Willie Stargell with his bat on his left shoulder, right? Or in the middle of his twirl, all you'd have to do is put it on the marketplace, sell it, collect your money and be done with it. Well, it's funny. My son has also started a side hustle where he's brokering Pokemon cards. I mean- There you go.

All of this, it's like, what is it? We should start like puka shell selling you and I. It's like we just decided it's valuable. I wish I would have kept mine from like eighth grade. Yeah, I mean, come on. And we'll be right back after this.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Hey, I can just tell you this, Rob. Supply and demand is undefeated. Yes. Where there is demand, if you can provide the supply, you will make money if you sell it at a profit.

That's just the way the world works. And, you know, when you get the Internet and now with NFTs, it just becomes easier and easier and easier to connect people to buy and sell. And particularly with digital goods. I mean, that's one of the reasons why cryptocurrencies are blowing up the way they are, because it really takes a lot of friction out of a lot of business transactions, particularly peer to peer business transactions.

Um, when Napster first came out back in, in the day, there was a, you, you, my, my memory of this is a little fuzzy, so you're going to have to help me through it. But there was a Supreme court case. It wasn't about Napster, but you were, you helped fund one of the defendants. Am I right about this? Yeah. And I forget the name of, so they were competitor to Napster. Yes. And, um, I I'm spacing the name of it, but I helped fund them because they,

You just had all the big record labels just dumping on all the peer-to-peer downloaders. That's right. And they weren't doing it, I didn't think, out of a good place. It wasn't like they were trying to protect or grow a business or protect artists or creators.

They were just suing for the sake of suing because they were big and everybody else was little. And I didn't think that was right. So we lost, but I tried to help. Well, no. And the reason I thought of it was it was it's supply and demand. There was a demand for music to be consumed in that way. And it's like what we could. It's funny. This conversation keeps coming back to in various different ways to the same themes over and over again, which is like.

Adapt or get crushed. Yeah, you've got to give, you know, when we started AudioNet, which was the first streamer,

and people would just laugh at us. I'll just turn on my TV. I'll turn on my radio, whatever. We would just tell people, you don't understand. Everything's going digital, bits or bits. They don't care if they're audio, video, or whatever. And if we're able to give people what they want, how they want it, where they want it, when they want it, they'll consume those things through us. And they'll go through the hassles, which back then were a lot. And I had no doubt in my mind that what was difficult back then would become easy.

And it was the same thing with high definition. When we started HDNet in 2001, everybody was like, no one's going to want high definition because those TVs are $20,000 a pop, you know, and it doesn't matter if they look cool on the wall. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. Technology marches forward. The price performance is...

The price is going to get lower and the performance is going to get better. And the same thing has happened with HDTVs and HD. Now everything's HD. The same thing's happened with streaming. You know, now we're getting away from linear TV. You don't even talk about analog anymore. Analog, everything is gone. Gone. And so, you know,

things happen sometimes under our noses and we don't realize, even though it may take 10 or 20 years, that these huge shifts have taken place and that's not ever going to change. I remember in 2001, we were in a car accident

We were making the West Wing. It was the very beginning of high def and everything was still being shot for a traditional TV framed format. Four by three. Yeah. And so the boom mics would have to be in a straight. It was such an ordeal. And and even there weren't even high def monitors then. So they would mask it with masking tape.

to give you that format and you do a take and go, ah, somebody, we saw the boom in high def. Oh, forget it. Who cares? And, and I remember there was on, um, but we knew eventually it would be in high def. So we shot it that way. Um, on CBS famously, they were the last adapter to high def and their thing was our viewers will think there's something wrong with their television.

Oh, I remember going in there and having those conversations at Fox and CBS. When we started shooting Shark Tank, when I started shooting Shark Tank in 2010, they didn't shoot in high def. And if you look at some of the replays from that first 2009, my first season as a guest, 2010, they're

blurry as hell because they didn't do HD and you would have thought by 2010, 2011 it's a no-brainer and it just wasn't. And now if you see something in 4x3 obviously it looks ancient. It's like being in black and white. Yeah, it looks like you're watching Steamboat Willie.

It's like the original Walt Disney. How do you, are you enjoying Shark Tank? You must. It's such a great, it's such a great show. It's so addicting. And people, like you said, you're, people learn a ton about,

about finance and about business for just watching it. That's exactly why I do it. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the top three shows on television watched by families together. And, you know, back in normal days, I can't tell you how many times when people would just stop me or even now email me saying, you know, my son, you know, or my daughter started this business or that business. And now it's like, we've been on so long going into season 13. Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy that it's like, oh, I grew up watching Shark Tank and I started a business because I've learned so much. And, you know, there's thousands of schools that will use video from the show to to teach entrepreneurship. And that's exactly why I do it, because shooting the show is easy. You know, letting people watch it. I mean, obviously, the producers and editors do a great job picking the deal and making us look good.

But dealing with the companies after the fact can be a pain in the ass. I can only imagine. That's the part. And maybe it exists and I don't know about it. So forgive me in advance if it does. But that's the version I also want to see. It's like, OK, what's the fallout?

Yeah, we did it one season, but it was so contrived. I hated doing it and it just didn't work because the reality is, you know, out of the hundred plus businesses I've invested in and Shark Tank, they followed pretty much a normal curve where about 20% were really good and made me a lot of money. 20%, I just lost it all. And the 60% in the middle,

just keep on grinding all you make a little, you lose a little. And that's real world. That's real life across any distribution for startups. And, you know, there's just some entrepreneurs. And so people know, like when we say yes to a deal, we get to do due diligence after the fact. And because a lot of times they get so nervous.

You know, on TV, they may be 10, 14 minutes long, but in real life, when they're pitching us, they could go anywhere from 20 minutes for really dumb ones to two hours for really intense ones where a bunch of us are interested. And, you know, sometimes it gets so intense, they'll just lie their asses off. You know, so they'll say, my widget only cost a dollar to make. And what they won't say is it only cost a dollar if they make a billion of them and they've made seven, you know.

You know, or I have no debt. I have no debt on the balance sheet whatsoever. And then you do your due diligence and they have $100,000 on their credit cards. And like, well, it doesn't count if it's on my credit card. That's not debt. And just stuff like that. And, you know, it's just in the list of things that you uncover across all these companies is incredible. But, you know, it's

But the people are real. And to me, that's the most exciting part. Helping somebody really grow their business or grow with their business and turning it into something special and see them have their dreams come true. Those are the things I wish we showed more of after the fact. And we do updates, you know, but I wish we went more in depth because when you see that happen, you know, and you help somebody really, really grow.

change their lives and change their employees lives and change their customers lives then you know that that's when you just sit there and you smile and you realize you're part of something special do you think it's harder to start a business today than than than it has been historically or do you feel like we people go through periods cyclical periods where everybody complains about regulation and this and that and it at the end of the day it all kind of works itself out

I think it's easier to start a personal services business right now, particularly if it's technologically oriented, because all you need is a laptop, a phone, and an internet connection, and you can pretend you're big and sell anything to anyone around the world. Face-to-face and real-life type personal services businesses are less...

are a little bit more difficult, but I think they're getting a little easier because effectively they've become arbitrages on people's time. You know, if you're willing to do a good job and sell your time, then I think my time is worth more. I'll pay you to walk my dog.

you know, that type of thing. I think that's easier. I think there are certain industries that have just become regulatory nightmares where there's licensing rules. I don't know if it's still the case, but it used to be in the state of Louisiana. You had to have 2000 hours as helping shampoo hair at a salon before you are allowed to be an officially licensed shampoo person. You know, so where there's circumstances like that, it's just crazy and more difficult.

Yeah, that's – see, that's the stuff that drives me insane. Insane. Insane. I hate it. It's like – I hate it. It's like it's the old saw about, you know –

kids having to have a permit to set up a lemonade stand. Yeah. I mean, and I've done stuff like that too, where, you know, literally I've talked to different municipalities and asked them, you know, I'm doing this special shark tank and it's going to have a lemonade stand or sell something publicly. You're not going to come and bust us, are you, for not having these permits? I mean, it's just ridiculous. This, this has been so great. I

Are you, when do you play the Lakers? When are you coming through LA? We just played the Lakers twice in Dallas and beat them twice. Oh baby. God damn it. So we're not, we're done with them for this season unless we play them in the playoffs. Oh, I know. So who do you think is the most effusive owner? You or Steve Ballmer?

Me, of course. Steve learns from me. Dude, it's hard to compete. He is a ham. He is some ham on the sidelines, isn't he? He gets intense, and that's for sure. That's why I like Steve. I think, you know, what's interesting to all that is when I first came into the league, I can't tell you how many people told me to shut the hell up and get up in the owner's box. I remember it. People were like –

They were like, what is this guy doing? Yes. It was like a super fan had taken control, which is great. And everybody thought I was just crazy and couldn't believe it. I'd get fined. One time when I first bought the team, I just said, you know what? I wanted people, the guys who work for us and women for that matter, I wanted them to feel comfortable around me. So you know how there's guys...

that the equipment people that sit right next to the bench, they actually sit on the floor and then they run out there and pick jerseys up. So I sat down there with them just like so I can get to know them and know their job better. I got to find $150,000 for conduct unbecoming an owner for doing that.

You know, and now you got, you know, now we're trying to decide. You don't see Herb Simon down there. No, and I love Herb. Herb is the best. Herb is the best. He's my neighbor up here in Montecito. Oh, is he? Yeah. Herb is awesome because Herb just loves everybody. I know. He was one of my biggest supporters. But in any event, now we're talking about me versus Balmer, who's crazier. So that shows you how far it's come. I know. I know. Like technology, it keeps marching on.

It's supply and demand. It's undefeated. People want crazy, enthusiastic owners. Amen. And that's what they want. This has been, this is fantastic. Yeah, I really enjoyed it, Rob. The questions were awesome. Oh, good. And we'll do more. All right, I'm going to write you and we'll get a lunch and we'll catch up more. Thanks and good luck tonight. I have no love for the Sacramento, so you can crush them. I hope so, too. I appreciate it, Rob. All right, brother. Thanks, man. Thanks, brother.

Wow, that was so fun. I feel so dumb. I feel like I've done nothing in my life. I feel like, well, by the way, truth. I mean, I'm a guy who wears makeup for a living. People tell me what to say and I stand in front of a camera. That guy is other level. I mean, you know, it's always interesting to talk to people who you know are smart going in. And then when you talk to them, you're like, oh, yeah, this person actually is really, really smart. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did.

I'm going to go listen to it myself and take notes and try to act on it and see if I can't be an entrepreneur in my own right. It is time for the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hi, Rob. My name's Allie. I'm from a little town in Ontario called Dashwood up in Canada here. And my question for you is, is what...

was the best advice that you got when you became a parent for the first time? My fiance and I are expecting our first child in May, and I'm just looking for some advice from one of my favorite podcasters. So hit me with your best advice for a new parent. Thank you for asking. I'm honored to be asked about a subject that I care a ton about.

The first advice I ever remember being given, and I think it's significant because it was given to me at a time where being a parent was the farthest thing from my mind. And yet I remembered it. So I feel like that's significant. And that was my lawyer at the time, very successful entertainment lawyer, top of his field, busy, busy, busy, you know, Mr. Happening guy, L.A. guy doing it, doing it, career man, right?

I went to his office and was filled with pictures of his kids and little league games, his family stuff. And I go, oh, your kid plays little league. He's yeah, I never miss a game ever. I was like, really? He said, yeah. He said, you know, Rob, one day you'll be a father. And what you realize is the time that you put in will be the time that you get back. And I never forgot it. Happily, it came naturally to me.

I organically naturally wanted to be as present as I could be, whether it's reading a story at bedtime or, you know, school drop off or talking to them about their friends or I loved coaching my kids teams. It's it's there's no substitute for putting in the time. It just isn't.

And my heart always goes out to people who have to work multiple jobs or, you know, can't be at home as much as they would like. And I have tremendous empathy for that. I was very lucky that I was able to design my life around my kids, which I did. That's why I started doing television. I didn't want to go on location. I wanted to be home every night. And I was.

And then the other thing I will say, which is a real cliche, but it really is true, is enjoy every second of it because it will be over before you can imagine it. And as a new parent, when you hear that, you think that has to be the biggest bunch of bullshit you've ever heard in your life. You haven't slept in a year and all of that. But I'm telling you right now, you're going to look back on it and be like, oh, my gosh, I forgot all about it. So savor it. Enjoy it. And good luck. We will see you next week.

You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. Produced and engineered by me, Devin Tory Bryant.

Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Lowe Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blairt. Talent producer, Jennifer Sampas. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Grimace box. Hello Kitty keychains. Teeny beanies. For a limited time, your favorite McDonald's collectibles filled with memories and magic are now on collectible cups. Get one of six when you order a collector's meal at McDonald's with your choice of 10-piece McNuggets or a Big Mac. Come get your cup.

While you still can. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. At participating McDonald's for a limited time while supplies last.