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I know it's trendy to hate on billionaires, and by no means do I think this step makes Mark Cuban the new "Mother Teresa" or anything. But I have to say, by and large, I feel like Cuban is legitimately a "good guy" as billionaires go. Yes he's rich, and he's unabashed about it, but he seems like a normal and reasonable human being nonetheless.

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Ever since he joined Shark Tank that show has become one of the best things to happen to our economy in the 2000's.

He's exposing millions of Americans to the long term benefits of a value creation, non-linear thinking, honesty is the best policy, builder/craftmanship mindset.

When I was a kid growing up far away from Silicon Valley we had "The Apprentice" to learn from. Shark Tank (especially Cuban, but really the whole cast), is orders of magnitude better.

I believe there was a point when Shark Tank would take some amount of equity from every business that came on the show regardless of if one of the sharks invested or not. Cuban called BS and said he wouldn't be on the show if that was the case. The policy was removed as a result.

Smart move too, since you will probably get better companies on the show without that sort of policy.

Yes. I can confirm this is exactly what happened (roommate almost went on the show, pre-Cuban. though I'm sure theres a lot more to the story that insiders would know).

Curious: does the show take equity IF the sharks invest? I haven't really seen the show beyond a few episodes.

No. The negotiations are real, and while there is a follow-up due diligence to close (or not) the deal, that is it. Note that anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of deals fall through in the due diligence phase, depending on the shark.

The first season, before they brought on Marc Cuban, the show took a percentage just for appearing on the show (so even if you didn't get a deal, you still gave up equity). The second season, Marc Cuban came on and insisted they remove that rule.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/10/21/about-72-...

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/do-the-deals-on-sha...

I have attended a few presentations where Phil Dumas, founder of UniKey, described his experience winning an investment on Shark Tank. He explained that there were many unattractive terms in the agreement he received after the recording that made him ultimately decline the investment. My takeaway was that it doesn't matter what happens on the show, the real offer is more complicated.

(I have never seen the show, so I don't know how the offers are described. As an investor, I cannot imagine any offer that can be made verbally in the timespan of a television episode being meaningful.)

It's meaningful in getting future guests/contestants to be willing to appear on the show. If all of the sharks only ever said no, nobody would want to go on the show. They have to at least make the audience think deals are happening to keep an audience. After that, if the deal actually completes or not are not relavent to the producers of the show. They just need to line up the next round of chum to bring out in front of the sharks.

I have never seen the show, so I don't know how the offers are described.

Usually it's just one of the sharks offering something like "I'll pump in $500k for a 20% stake." (numbers made up) No details beyond that.

The shows are edited for time. Each negotiation, which airs for about ~10 minutes on the show, takes an average of 2 hours to shoot (with a surprisingly wide variance).

I too had a lot of respect for Cuban regarding this.

Article from Inc:

Mark Cuban Made Shark Tank Change Its Contracts After threatening not to return until an equity clause was removed from contestants' contracts, Mark Cuban finally got his way.

Just for appearing on the show, owners agree to give up 5% of their company or 2% of future royalties.

...

Cuban said the clause was removed retroactively, meaning every contestant who's appeared on the show since Season One will be relieved of the commitment. However, how that will work out logistically remains unclear.

https://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/mark-cuban-forces-shark-ta...

I love when "medical" products with incredible claims show upon Shark Tank because Cuban usually shreds the owner's claims in about 2 seconds. He doesn't seem to tolerate grifters very well.

This venture seems like a shot across the bow of anyone trying to squeeze an unfair percentage on top of generic drugs. Kudos to Cuban for launching this but it is something the US government should have been doing decades ago through drug price negotiation for medicare.

You grew up watching The Apprentice? wow, wild. it started airing in 2004

So.. Someone who was 12 back then is now 29. Doesn't seem that wild to me.

...Great, thanks for checking in.

Yup, my mom and I watched it together for years. At least it was worth it for that QT (now somtimes we still watch Shark Tank together). This is back when I was still a script kiddy and lemonade stand entrepreneur.

I also read "Art of the Deal" or whatever that crap was called.

Sometime I can tell you the story of how I sued a Fortune 50 company after a minor disagreement because I thought that's how business was done.

I can only laugh about all that now, and shout "thank you" to Cuban that we have at least one highly entertaining business show that also teaches mathematically correct ways of thinking about business.

You have a rather charitable interpretation of the show. I saw 4 powerful combative "investors" holding ordinary folks in their fists, playing with their lives, and sometimes even verbally abusing them. The show offers a lottery ticket on top of the lottery ticket out of day-to-day work that is creating a new business. What invention the participants bring is commodified a second time, a double grotesquerie. I absolutely can't stand it, and the show, in teaching viewers to hold unsuccessful contestants in contempt, also promotes a sort of circus-like misanthropy.

Thanks for this counterpoint.

I think at certain levels of wealth, being "normal" is simply impossible. But there are people who use their fortunes for altruistic causes and that should be celebrated. Unfortunately, most of these cases simply highlight fundamental issues in other areas of our society.

He's a major investor in my company, and can 100% attest that's true. What's most astonishing about him is how responsive he is even two years after making that investment. He must have so many companies and he's still always showing up and encouraging and providing value. He's pretty direct when he thinks we are doing the wrong things, but that's always appreciated. His super power is handling all that over email (mostly).

I second that sentiment. I was in business with Cuban for many years, he always responded quickly and could always be reached via email / messaging in a matter of minutes in most cases if something came up. An almost ideal investor for an entrepreneur and his terms are very unusual in the industry, he often takes common shares with no strings, he's on the same playing field as the founders.

This is awesome. I’ve been daydreaming for years that Bezos would launch some kind of “CostCo, but drugs” operation, as I figured he had the infrastructure… but this will do just fine.

He should get insulin and epipen factories running ASAP, those are very high profile scams in the US right now.

Looks like they could use some web dev help…

Costco sells a bunch of generics. Their Allegra is super cheap compared to everyone (or was the last I checked).

Most in my state (CA) also have fully functional pharmacies, and the prescription drug prices are much cheaper much of the time. I shopped around when I went through a period of poor insurance (years ago) and my monthly medication costs were $25 at Costco, and the nearest competitor I could find was just over $100 when paying cash. Also, I believe that California, you do not need a Costco membership to purchase from the Costco pharmacy.

You also don't need a Costco membership to purchase alcohol. And a lot of Kirkland liquor is the absolute bomb.

What is good besides the vodka being a near identical done of Grey Goose? I feel like I got kind of burned with their tequila, which was extremely mediocre.

The gin is pretty good value. I agree about the tequila.

Not sure if their supplier has changed in the past few years, but their bourbon is pretty good for the price. There was speculation it was from Jim Beam, some kind of Knob Creek barrels.

I've heard that their scotch is extremely competitive at that (low) price range.

Their scotch can be good, but look up the specific bottling. Sometimes it'll be something like a "factory second" of MacCallan 18... not the prime barrels, not as good as the stuff actually sold by macallan, but also about 1/3rd the price.

This isn't the case everywhere. It depends on which state you live in

I think this is only true in a handful of states. In California, there's apparently an old law that you can't have members-only alcohol clubs, so Costco technically has to let you buy alcohol.

I tried this once last year before I had a membership, and the person at the entrance told me they would need to get an employee to escort me, and it might take an hour, because they're busy.

Presumably this is the kind of thing that a court would smack down, since I'm pretty sure they're required to actually provide reasonable access, but I was just trying it for fun and didn't make a fuss about it.

> I tried this once last year before I had a membership, and the person at the entrance told me they would need to get an employee to escort me, and it might take an hour, because they're busy.

> Presumably this is the kind of thing that a court would smack down, since I'm pretty sure they're required to actually provide reasonable access, but I was just trying it for fun and didn't make a fuss about it.

Also it makes no sense for them to need to escort you. They scan your card on checkout so how would you buy stuff other than alcohol anyway?

Anyway I've never heard of anyone being told that before. I understand not making a fuss (we are social animals after all), but it probably should be done so they don't keep trying BS like that.

I mean, they obviously just didn't want non-members in the store.

I'm surprised they said that, but probably your mistake was in asking. :) Even with a membership, I'll occasionally be too lazy to bother pulling my card out at the door, and will just tell (not ask) the person there that I'm going to the pharmacy. They let me go right on by. Once in, you can go anywhere you want. As CogitoCogito said, the real check is at the register, where you can only buy certain items without a card. Apparently that also includes alcohol - never knew that.

The person at the door was very diligently checking. This was the SF Costco, in the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, so perhaps it's unique to that specific location or those specific circumstances. Indeed, just a few weeks ago I went to another Bay Area Costco intending to inquire about membership, and the person at the door was just handing out promotional flyers, so I helped myself to a quick self-guided tour of the store to see if I thought membership made sense for my household (I did decide to buy a membership, for what it's worth).

That is correct. Just tell them you’re going to the pharmacy at the entrance.

They sell generics, but I don't believe they actually make them.

Allow me to clarify: CostCo sells everything at a fixed profit margin (I believe it's around 18% but I could be mistaken). I have no idea where their generics come from, I doubt they manufacture themselves, so before the CostCo markup they are subject to the same inflated prices you'll find anywhere else before the pill reaches the drugstore or your doctor or whatever.

What I've been imagining, specifically, is generics manufacturer that applied a fixed profit margin — "cost plus" — to their products. I guess that's not precisely the CostCo model, but you get my drift now.

"CostCo sells everything at a fixed profit margin (I believe it's around 18% but I could be mistaken)."

You're mistaken no they don't.

Still waiting for the clarification. You nailed the denunciation, though.

You're right, it's not fixed. It caps at 14% for outside brands, 15% for "Kirkland" brands, but averages at 11% (2019). https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-does-costco-compete-with-...

Contrast to markups of 25 to 50% for typical retail, and for generic drugs in the thousands. https://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/1-000-pharmacy-mark-...

That inc article is the only place I see those margin caps and it doesn't come sources. Other articles say that costco doesn't publish their margins.

However, their financial statements do indicate an 11% average gross markup.

But there are definitely plenty of products marked up more than 18% at Costco. Either that or they are paying way too much for some things.

Amazon usually waits until it can clone the operations before it dives into a new territory. Even though they would be set up for it quite easily as you say, they’re approach in the past has been more EEE...or more politely adopt and optimize.

By the way, Costco’s prices are pretty good in the current environment, especially in large quantities.

There was a pretty good thread about insulin on this story when it was posted to Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/l5vv6m/billi...

Didn't Amazon buy PillPack? Not sure I can seem them moving to manufacture product though it certainly is possible.

I think a lot of that comes down to his background. Mark Cuban is from a very blue collar background. Compare that to Bezos/Musk/Gates/Zuckerberg, all of whom were from money.

The real Mother Teresa was no 'Mother Teresa.'

What, you aren't a fan of needless suffering?

To be fair, when it was her time, neither was Mother Teresa.

For thee, but not for me.

Any good resource to learn about her issues?

From what I understand generic drugs are currently often made overseas, and then sold back to American market. Although he may not be a bad guy, he simply knows how to make money, and there are many billions left for the taking in this market. Definite not Mother Theresa, but better done locally, at the least.

How do you feel you know this?

I don't know the man either way, and you may be spot on, but outside folks whose work is largely charitable and etc, how does anyone feel they know these things?

How do you feel you know this?

My impression of Mark Cuban has been built up over the years from a variety of sources, ranging from a brief in-person encounter[1] with him, to reading his book, his blog posts, etc., to seeing him on TV in various forms, interviews he's done, etc. There isn't exactly one specific thing that stands out by itself.

All of that said, it's a very subjective thing, and for all I know Mark works very hard to cultivate that specific image for his own ends. I have no problem saying that my impression could be wrong. But based on the limited evidence I have available, that's where I'm at with it at the moment.

[1]: I don't typically hang out with billionaires or anything. The only reason I've met Cuban is because he was once a keynote speaker at an event I attended. After his speech he hung out with the hoi polloi and mingled and interacted with people. I spent maybe 3 minutes chatting with him personally about my business, and maybe another 10-15 minutes listening to him talk to a small crowd that gathered around him. To be fair, that encounter probably went as far in shaping my impression of him as anything. I think the single biggest thing was that he displayed no condescension or smug superiority or anything towards people who weren't on his financial level. He was respectful, attentive, and reasonable even when talking with some rando like me.

Thank you. I prevaricate your response.

When I found out the a-hole on Silicon Valley was partially based on him, I had to do a little research

Couldn't find one negative experience. There are several threads on Quora for instance detailing how he treats everyone with respect and is a genuinely good dude.

Isnt he the one who returned a bunch of Covid stimulus money after being called out on not needing it? Perhaps an oversite in his business empire, or perhaps damage control?

The recent events where he helped Delonte West make for a pretty uplifting story that helps me believe Cuban is a decent and empathetic human being.

By and large this country is very lucky with the billionaires it continues to produce: Bezos, Cuba, Buffet, Gates, Paul Allen, Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Musk, etc, all seem to be incredible people who are committed to do good. I think it has something to do with the fact that these people are self-made and for the most part made their billions without having to sell their souls to the devil.

I think out of the group you named at least Zuckerberg and Bezos have sold their souls to the devil

And in the 90's, many were convinced Gates was the devil.

Many of us still are

I am conflicted about Zuckerberg, I think I understand where you are coming from, but Zuckerberg contributes heavily to charity and perhaps might not have realized the monster he was creating in Facebook. Similarly Dorsey. I do not get the Bezos hate.

One of the big issues with Zuckerberg's optics are the circumstances around Facebook's creation. An app to rate people's attractiveness, laughing in chat logs that people would trust him with their personal information, etc. Combined with the externalities and immense power they now have, it's not a great look.

However, I agree that he's probably a better person than most give him credit for, and I think he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place on a lot of these issues. Especially things relating to politics, mis/disinformation, and free speech. I consider the proliferation of non-paid online services (who therefore can only survive by making money in other ways) the true bane of humanity; not any particular executive. (That said, I'm also not going to let anyone off the hook once they deliberately choose to create such a service.)

I had a high opinion of Bezos until the disclosure of Amazon's poor working conditions. His making the minimum wage for workers $15/hour is a good step, but I think they're going to need to do a lot more before that reputation changes. Other than that, I admire him.

Dorsey seems to be the least hated of the bunch, and I like him, personally. He seems like he still has a kind of hacker mindset, and I believe he genuinely wants to make Twitter a force for good in the world. I'm not sure if he'll be able to accomplish it, though.

Doesn't Zuckerberg still have a controlling interest in Facebook? Seems to me, that makes him more culpable than most of the rest.

I'm just looking at what Wikipedia says Zuckerberg is worth but it's $69B. Looking at what Forbes said his charity (which does not mean 100% his money) they donated $410 million in 2018. That's ~0.006% of his wealth meaning it's not even giving away a penny out of $100. It's close to half a penny out of $100.

I understand net worth of $69B is on paper but none of these guys are philanthropic.

You're off by a factor of 100.

Are you sure it's not 0.594% of his networth as opposed to 0.0006?

Edit: My math was off. Thanks to those correcting me.

I would separate here, Bezos is evil because he is just amassing wealth, avoids taxes and pretty much is focused only on himself. Contrast that with Cuban who is also amassing wealth, but also is trying to do what is good for the community.

Bezos has donated a lot to charity, including $10 billion to fight climate change and $100 million to food banks in 2020. Sure, he could donate more, but % wise that's probably more than many people reading this have donated in 2020. And I don't want to start a debate over it, but I do believe that the primary intention behind Blue Origin is to benefit humanity.

The main issue with Bezos is worker conditions at Amazon, I think.

These are mostly tax moves, not genuine concern, in my view.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/jeff-bezo...

I legitimately can't tell if this is satire, particularly the "self-made" part.

Bezos' parents loaned him a quarter-million dollars in 1995 [1].

Gates' mother, while on the board of directors of United Way, convinced IBM to invest in MS in 1980 [2].

Zuckerberg's parents sent him to the crazy selective and expensive boarding school Philips Exeter Academy and was privately tutored in comp sci before college [3].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/how-jeff-bezos-got-his-paren...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-...

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa...

It's a long way from quarter of a million to Amazon.

How many people get quarter of a million in inheritance or have rich parents? It's silly to call out "self made" just because someone got a loan. Bezos did not inherit billions of dollars, he is a billionaire now. By any metric he is a self made billionaire.

It's a lot longer from zero (or negative, in you have student loans) to a quarter million if you're working outside the SV/software engineer salary bubble.

No complaint here. I was referring to calling out Bezos for not being "self made".

The point isn't that it wasn't hard work to grow from $250,000 to billions. The point is that there's a big difference between saying "anyone who works hard can build a company like Amazon" and "anyone who works hard and got $250,000 from their parents can build a company like Amazon."

Anyone who says that (anyone who works had can build a company like Amazon) is a fool. Most likely suffering from survivorship bias.

You cannot. But Bezos did not inherit billions and living on them. He is self made, maybe he did not start at zero, but he did 1000x or 10000x (or even more) what he received. If someone had received a loan of 1000 dollars, I doubt anyone would say he isn't self made when he reached a million.

This is a straw man. Nobody thinks that "self-made" means that you literally had no help whatsoever. Bezos was a hedge-fund SVP before starting Amazon, so it's not as if he was particularly hurting for more funding.

It's not a straw man if the first commenter was intending to use "self-made" to actually mean something to a reader anywhere close to an average reader. To an average reader, even on this website which probably skews American and wealthy, it's just not reasonable to refer to someone as a "self-made billionaire" when they received a loan from their parents that's well over 3 times the median household income in the United States.

Self-made just means that you made the money with your own effort as opposed to inherited it. There's nothing in that comment that attempts to paint them as relatable. If they wanted to do that, they would talk about Bezo's teenage mother and adoptive Cuban-immigrant father. For all we know, that $250,000 could have been money gifted to Bezo's parents while he was employed at DE Shaw.

> Self-made just means that you made the money with your own effort as opposed to inherited it. There's nothing in that comment that attempts to paint them as relatable.

I disagree. The point of the term is not to describe a financial technicality. If someone inherited $900m and worked really hard to earn another $100m, I think most people would be confused to hear them described as a self-made billionaire. On the other hand, of course, people wouldn't tend to be confused if you described some billionaire as self-made if they grew up lower-middle-class and their parents gave them $100 when they turned 18.

So, yes, it's not an "all or nothing" thing, but it is absolutely about conveying relatability to a certain audience. We can reasonably disagree about whether describing Bezos as self-made is appropriate for the HN audience, but I tend to think the $250k "business loan" from his parents should at the bare minimum accompany the inspiring anecdotes about making a desk from a door (which, from what I have read, was literally done to symbolize the imaginary need for extreme frugality).

> all seem to be incredible people who are committed to do good

Gates and Zuckerberg were far from models of piety in how they came into their fortune.

What do you consider most probable:

- They are all the greatest people ever

- They all can afford to employ the most expensive personal marketing teams ever

How many more billionaires than those that you've named has it produced?

What about Exxon, AT&T, Aetna, AIG, Goldman, DuPont Chemical, Lockheed, McKinsey?

There's a pretty obvious bias there: the ones you name do good because you named the ones who do good. (which, really, you could examine: how much of that perception is PR?)

We're not lucky to have billionaires. We'd be just as well if there were none at all.

The 100 million children alive today because of the work of the Gates foundation would not though.

I like Mark as well but he has had is bad moments.

Hanging out with Tai Lopez and making vids with him??! Come on.

not sure if the world can count on his moral value, but more competition is always good. If the narrative of generic drug pricing fixing is true, it would be a wonderful business opportunity as well.

Broken clock, etc.

(the "broken clock" being the obscenely wealthy as a class, not necessarily Cuban himself)

There are two options when you're rich like Cuban is (clearly there's more but to dumb it down).

You can acknowledge that while it took hard work, and luck to get where you are, you likely would not have done it if you hadn't been born into a society that fosters the ability to move up the social ranks. If Mark Cuban were born in Libya there's almost no chance he becomes a billionaire for instance.

Or you can pretend like the reason you're rich is solely of your own doing, and that the world owes you something.

Cuban seems to be the former, and while he's not going to volunteer to just give all his money away, he is trying to help society collectively improve. It's a stark contrast between his approach and say, the Koch brothers.

I guess the best way I'd put it is Cuban is a capitalist who believes in the social contract.

Off topic. What do you mean by "if he was born to Libya"? Does it imply prior existence? The official theory is that we are created during those 9 months, assembled like cars, and if so, he couldn't be born to libya because the body assembled in libya would be completely different. In the unofficial theory, e.g. buddhism, prior existence is a thing, but even then Mark couldn't be born to Libya: there were only few choices for him matching his prior achievements and every path would lead to a billionaire status.

Imagine you and I share an apartment and we split the rent between us. It's not a great apartment. There's mould in the bathroom caused by a lack of ventilation. The carpet is a mess. The power keeps cutting out if we plug too many things in.

Now imagine I tell the landlord I'm going to move out unless he fixes these issues and he then offers me a 50% discount on the rent. Now imagine he recoups that discount by putting your rent up by the same amount. And now imagine that I use those savings to buy a nice big TV for the two of us. The bathroom is still covered in mould. The carpet is still a mess. The power still cuts out all the time. And you pay more rent than me.

But I bought an awesome TV for us. So I'm the good guy right?

What an unrealistic comparison. No landlord would ever do that, nor would the roommate agree to the changes that the landlord would attempt to make even if that is something the landlord would do.

Aren't you in Vancouver? I've had landlords here that would absolutely do something like that. Many slumlords would do anything they think they can get away with.

Nope. I've never been to Canuckistan. If you're saying this is typical behaviour of landlords in Canadia, then it makes me have second thoughts if universal health care is worth it.

This analogy would work if you were already paying 10000x more than the roommate in the first place.

Remember, all of the talk of billionaires “paying less in taxes than their assistants” is not based on raw collected amounts, it’s based on percentages. A billionaire with an effective federal tax rate of 15% on 50 million income is paying 7.5 million in taxes, which is more than all of the federal tax collected from the bottom 10% of income combined.

Make no mistake Mark Cuban is a snake if you ever lookup his past business dealings. He made his money by basically pushing out fellow founders at paypal.

> He made his money by basically pushing out fellow founders at paypal.

I wasn't aware he was a founder at PayPal. I didn't even know he had worked for them.

He wasn't and he didn't.

Mark Cuban made his money selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo.

I looked up his business dealings: he never had anything to do with PayPal, much less being a founder.

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