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Save mark negotiation

[Music] all right so i'm here with my buddy mark cuban and i'm going to just act like an interviewer which is not that great uh because i'm dyslexic i could barely read but uh you know listen you don't know him you're obviously crazy because if you know me you know him of course um mark started selling uh garbage bags at age 12 and then fast forward he created micro uh he created uh micro solutions computer consulting services and that he sold to compuserve in 1990 co-founded broadcast.com wait a minute this is new information for me so the micro solutions was before broadcast.com oh yeah that's when i was a kid man i just got fired and had to start something and started that company and then ran it for seven years and sold it and then five years later i took out i retired man i did nothing with trade stocks and travel the world and just have fun and then we got back together and started the streaming industry oh damn i thought you only had one egg you had two eggs all right no i got more than two i got more than two so in between there i actually started a hedge fund because i my trading on my stocks i was killing it and then someone bought it for me like nine months later so i've had back before broadcast i had a couple exits i didn't know that so congratulations sorry i played on that one but um then you go you bought the dallas maverick in 2000 and uh 2010 and in 2006 they competed in their first ever and being final in 2011 which thank god i was there one of the only times showed up at half time showed up at halftime i didn't even know mark i mean the hot dog stand was really long i mean that line was a long dj you have to to to get a good you know priorities are priorities i know man and then obviously we came and and and gifted us for becoming a shark on shark tank uh you came on for one season and they ended up becoming the know-it-all for the rest of the and tell everybody that thank god you came on because you know when shark tank truck thing is a true startup it moved from day to day to cast the cast and when you came on you were able to bring awareness by going on to other shows and explaining why this was good for entrepreneurship and people in general to educate them so thank you for being a fellow cast member uh besides this interview i will never tell other people that i actually have learned from you all right so vice versa vice versa thank you so you're in my powershell book and the reason i put you in there for various different reasons but you always say that and i really really want to dispel this because you always say you're the luckiest guy in the world and i don't want people to get spoiled by thinking you were the luckiest guy in the world because luck just came out of nowhere and when you were creating all these type of positionings of yourself and brands to be able to now that i even this new information that's why i love walking down these interviews learning that you had these various different amount of exits and let's say leading up to the six billion dollar exit did you know that you were putting these things in play to create an exit or create this thing was there a method to your madness no no man it was just like my first company micro solutions i'd gotten fired and i was you know sleeping on the floor six guys in a three bedroom apartment literally mustard and ketchup sandwiches so i had no choice so there was no method to the madness at all it was like i remember talking to one of my guys he's like well you can go on unemployment i'm like nah i can't i can't i can't i gotta start a business and um that's what i did and it just just started going man i remember going to my just talking to as many people as i could and networking and finally found this one company who offered to put up 500 bucks um so that i could buy this piece of software for 250 and i told them if it didn't work i'd walk your dog i'd wash your car i'd sweep your floors whatever to make it up to you but i made it work and then from there i just took took referrals from them and kept on going and it turned into a 30 million dollar revenue business that i sold um to h r block copy serve for um six million seven years later and then from there it was like okay i got my little nest egg and because i knew technology i started trading stocks and i just killed it killed it i mean i was making millions back in the early 90s and one of my um one of my brokers said you know what you should do a hedge fund because i was making 80 90 100 a year and i was like okay so we started this hedge fund and within a year i sold it and so and then from there i was just like okay let's go and all i did was have fun um but then we started audio net in 1995 when the internet was just getting going and we were the pretty much the first to put audio or any media on the internet and i remember then i knew that had a chance to be big but it wasn't like i was planning for an exit this was before even the internet stock market was going nuts it was more like okay you know in my first company micro solutions we made money every single month because my expenses were so low you know and then the second one we made money and then this one i was trying to do it the same way um but you know then the internet stock market took off and then it got to the point where it wasn't so much thinking about exits it was more thinking about okay how big can we make this thing because we think we can be the new type of table cable tv and you know but when yahoo came along and made us an offer we couldn't refuse we grabbed it so there wasn't some big master plan right but you know what i got and maybe you're too close to it because i have rarely been able to exit from any of my companies a lot of people think i sold food when i didn't i sold a very portion of it to like uh i saw the territories of china um i didn't know that filipinos right but to have two and three exits uh and we get people on the show all the time or in person yeah i'm gonna get this coming then i'm gonna sell it and i don't see often a lot of exit is this the exits because they were more tech exits uh i mean one was a hedge fund but is it that the exits were easier because that's how tech is really the kind of business where you are absorbing as many as you can to have so many more technicals or tools or that you know you just set it up well enough to be able to present it to somebody well enough because sometimes on the show you know you ask the question how are your records being kept how is this and that because people come with a bucket that's a shoebox like that yeah right so is there a is there advice that you can give people on yeah themselves accordingly i i didn't plan for exits in any of them what what really made it work for me was the industries i was in i was usually the first like when i started the first one after i got fired i started saying okay i'm gonna figure out how to connect these pcs together and that was back in the day when people didn't connect into local area networks something that seems normal now right so we were doing what's called systems integration but we were the first and we were one of the largest in the country to do it um for our niche and so that's why someone was interested in buying us when i did the hedge fund again it was like i knew technology stocks and we were doing so well that it gave someone was actually able to buy my track record and that's why they bought us and then the third one with audio net we're the first to do streaming you know and so we saw streaming as the future of media and when yahoo wanted to get into that i mean we were pandora's spotify youtube all rolled into one and so you know it was the exits came because we were the first to do something one of the biggest if not the biggest to do it and bigger companies who wanted that skill set um acquired us now for other folks you know getting acquired isn't isn't just about scale but it's about having an edge it's about having something that differentiates you it may be trademarks it may be you know some skill it may be a product that you have that's unique but you're going to have to have something that that big company can't just create for themselves or buy somewhere else now looking back 20 years ago if you can go back in time now with all the all the more life and the negotiation experiences that you've had now if you were back in that room with yahoo with all the things you know now do you think it would have been a different outcome good bad or indifferent no because the thing about negotiating a good deal you don't have to get everything you say this all the time right right i mean you know when you when you have a deal usually both sides are don't think they got everything they wanted and that's okay and that's the way it was neither one of us got everything we wanted but i wasn't going to get greedy because once you try to get everything out of a deal that's when deals fall apart no i totally agree on that so i wouldn't favorite now to to kind of what's going on today like what would you say to a person right now that's thinking about making a power shift in their life right now be careful yeah really know what you're doing because the world's changing business is changing you know i don't know what it's going to look like in america 2.0 on the other side of this stuff right and so maybe you have a good feel if you have a vision for it and you want to make that power move to go out there and go to this new place or you think this is something special that's going on okay but make sure you know what you're doing because you know there's as of this morning there were what 33 36 million people out of work probably another 20 million underemployed so you got to be careful and the other thing i would say particularly the younger you are um there's no such thing as a career anymore everybody's a free agent and you can work for a year learn a lot get make some money and then use that to grow and get smarter and then figure out what your next move is um if you're older and you're trying to make that power move just be careful and and how long do you be careful because i think i think i heard you say one time something like if you don't don't know what to do then don't do anything at all at the moment it's something like that i'm not sure if it was the market or something like that yeah it's the markets but it applies to a career like how long you say being careful now you and i are firm believers that people should stay inside if they can and protect themselves and you know i was talking to my wife um we were of course having anxiety like everybody else without a child running around and stuff like that and i said you know i'm not a young you know i'm not a young little little you know i'm not young and active anymore like i should be and do you ever want our child to turn around at our graveyard and say my mother and dad just didn't want to stay home for a year um yeah that's a great line man that's a great line dj you know and then and you know mark i mean we we we're not you know we're not living in bad service and i'm not talking about the people out there in the world that need to go to work to make a living and they're on the front lines or um how long do you stay in that you know in that position and and not do anything like you know you know what i mean because it's yeah it's tough make that move you know yeah it's tough like you know like you said there's what did they say yesterday 40 of people making 40 dollars or less are unemployed right now and that's brutal you know and so if you gotta come up with something to pay your bills first check out all the government programs right because there's unemployment there's all kind of other government programs available local programs you know you paid your taxes this is the time to get your money back right this is the time to make use of it um that's number one if you're into starting businesses you got to be agile right because business has enclosed just how we do business how we buy things and where we buy things has changed right because there's nothing you know yeah you can't go out to dinner yeah you can't go out maybe get your hair cut obviously um but at the same time you can buy it almost anything here yeah right you know you can buy what can't you buy you know and so i think a lot of things are transitioning to all online you know so that if you have a way to sell something and you can do it online and deliver it there's going to be a ton of great businesses that are created right now as people innovate and are agile and come up with ways to sell and support folks who are staying in home at home and i think you would touch on a couple of different important issues i mean how many people doing their research going on this is why we pay taxes for many many years and we pay taxes and you have the ppp program out there you have i think there's emergency funding and stuff like that but let me have some business owners i know that you're going to hold your staff and i've been holding my staff uh now since it's happened um and a lot of my companies have taken ppp um and i've advised them that some people are gonna get backlash from taking pvp but some people aren't i said i said to all the founders if you can afford to not take it personally because that will help other people but you know you've been paying taxes all the time your team has been paying attention you can help your team for uh two months don't take it personally but give it to your team and give yours back right do you think that is a good position or should they say no you know what why have i been paying taxes for 20 or 30 years like this i'm not it's a loan if i do better i'll give it later but isn't this why i pay a crap loan of money like what do you say is the positioning that people should think about so a couple of things there dj number one you got to look at the rules of the ppp program it's only available to you if you've been negatively impacted by the pandemic and so if your business is up like i got a couple bits like dude wipes right from shark tank they're crushing it people couldn't get toilet paper they bought dude wipes their business is through the roof i make sure they did not take ppp they knew they couldn't take ppp i've had other businesses that just have gotten crushed for them absolutely take it if you're on the fence okay again if the pandemic has negatively impacted your business you deserve it you've paid your taxes but if it hasn't or you're still doing the same amount of business as before you can't you'll get in trouble now all that said there's still businesses that haven't haven't applied yet and there's still money you know as what's the date today the 14th yeah as of may 14th there's still 100 billion dollars left in the ppp program so if you are eligible you should be applying absolutely positively and if you're having a problem with your bank maybe it's too big and they see you as a small fish go to a local community bank you know they can just walk through the application and so i've sent people to little tiny banks that you know have 30 people working there and you know they had them approved within three hours so if you have a little community bank and you think you're eligible for ppp go for it and like you said there's other programs too there's eidl from the sba there's the irs tax credits those things if you're eligible there's no restrictions just go right particularly the irs tax credit because if you keep people on on the payroll i think it's up to ten thousand dollars why won't you grab it right right now i think that's a good point i think i think the point that i and i did recognize this and i haven't shared with people because i just totally forgot but i think you did bring up a vital point you know a lot of the big banks have a lot of big customers but these small local community banks are first of all they have uh they have a list of how much is allocated to them uh they uh they they would love the new business uh and see you as a potential new customer it's helping the local people are in the community so i think that's a great very point so i'm just gonna um go back to some of the stuff is i think more fun and that i i get to hear you talk about it i want to work out well so um you know as a negotiator and a business person in the tech world or the business world how did you apply that or do is it the same when you're talking to a new player or your current players because that's a very and i i know the only thing that's more important than the number is the person but is there a different way of negotiating when talking to players now remember players are at the top of their game they're young they're influenced by a lot of different things in the world you know maybe there's a big difference damon yeah there's a huge difference because there's a thing called the collective bargaining agreement through their union and so there's a very strict number of rules on how much we can pay you know how many players we have on the team what the minimum maximum salaries are and then there's also 29 teams that may be competing for their services and it's rare that you run into a situation where you've got you know a bunch of a bunch of other companies with a bunch of money competing to hire the same person and so it makes it a lot different than negotiating a regular deal because usually if you're negotiating something you've gotten to the point where two parties agree that okay we want to do a deal it's just a question of figuring out how to do it and eventually you get that with the player they're like okay i want to play for you i know how much cap room you have under the salary cap you know you're my you're my favorite so let's see if we can work this out and ninety percent of the time those deals work out with players ten percent of the time another team swoops in how much have you seen the parents and the homie and whatever be beneficial to the to the deal or negative to the deal because i know that a lot of times they come with you know they come with the people who raise them more or less how many times you've seen them you know be one one way or the other in the deal 100 of the time i mean family is really important to kids i mean these kids are 19 20 21 years old so families are still an important part of their lives and and how they're influenced by their families you know or just people that they've worked with their entire life it may be a coach you know it may be a runner somebody who's just been there in their lives um and so that's always important so you're typically not just selling the kid but you're selling the kid and his agent and their families to make them feel comfortable you know why are you going to like dallas over this other city you know why is it better to to come here what what's different about it and then it's even other things it's like okay dallas is a tax-free state you know but property taxes are higher than others said you know so how does that all balance out so something i learned from you is basically about that that i think a lot of people can learn from um you know before i knew you i knew of you of course and um you were and are a pop culture kind of guy people know mark cuban the with the billionaire but they also knew or heard of you throwing chairs on the cord and not i don't even know if you ever did that but you know the story got bigger and bigger bigger you threw a chair then you threw a person and then you threw you know story um and i know that earlier on in ukraine you're very passionate about your team and you're right down there and you show that you're willing to do whatever needs to be done but earlier in your career as a nba owner you gotta you got a bad rap as far as i'm concerned but knowing you now but i think i shared i talked to you about then you said well you came in there as an owner and you said i can do what i want it's my team and then you learn to do more of you know what kids are looking up to and things like that but tell me that story because it shows people how your reputation your influence can go on negatively probably but also you got to work on it and adjust to it you know when you take the responsibility at hand so when i bought the team you know everybody's like you gotta act like all the other owners and i was like why would i do that i mean the way i've run companies has worked for me you know i've started two companies prior to that three companies and i've built them they've all been successful and i sold them all you know so why wouldn't i use the same skill set to run the mavericks and that's what i did and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way um you know particularly a lot of people not not just other owners but you know in the sports world there's a lot of close connections between ownership you know management and media and so the media would just crush me all the time so that was one part of it and i just didn't care on that part but to your point like for whatever reason like you know me dj i'm i'm mellow right you don't see me get all fired up and you don't see me yelling and screaming i don't get mad at anybody but you put me in the middle of the game for whatever reason i'm screaming and yelling that's that's the one place where i let it all out and you know where i get really passionate and emotional and i guess that's my release but i you know at the beginning i would curse at the refs and then i would find out there'd be kids all around me and then it got me upset that i was cursing you know just firing away and these kids you know i would have these parents walk up when you can't curse and i'm like damn it and but you learned right and so i figured out real quickly that you know i'm still going to yell that's just the way i am you know that's my one place to get out my aggression but i stopped cursing you you know there'd be times when i'm about to yell something i shouldn't and now i catch myself and probably you know i've owned the team now for 20 years for probably the last 17 years i've been good at that but you know like you said some stories get blown out of proportion and everybody's got a story to tell it doesn't matter if it's true or not well what i took what i took from that when you had that conversation with me that you did say that kids are looking up to you and you know um you're representing the city and the town and exactly right a bigger obligation that you are glad to take on and you know that has built you to be even a better pop culture figure yeah and you know to your point you know i i learned quickly you know sometimes the hard way that you know sports is so big bigger than i ever imagined and you know kids do look up to you kids do look up to the players and you're not no one's perfect and fans don't expect you to be perfect but you know when you have a chance to be nice when you have a chance to do the right thing when you have a chance to be supportive when you have the chance of just something in the community when you have a chance to help people in the hospitals or the front line workers now you know a sports team is a great way to do it and i had to recognize that if i was going to fit into that and people wanted me to help them right if i was going to be a jerk people wouldn't want me to help them that i would have to adjust and and recognize that you know there were kids always watching and how i carried myself you know particularly not just during the game but particularly outside of the games that was very important because i had to be able to connect and relate if i was going to help people all right i got one last question hey do you want to say hello tomorrow say hi to uncle martin what up is there any other power shift you're making today i know that you've been getting extremely fit so that's a power shift taking care of your health before this you know pandemic came around but what other power should you mean today if any yeah i'm trying to help in the community you know um one of my friends said to me none of us can be heroes unless we're all heroes you know this only works unless we all protect each other um and so i'm trying to just be out there and help the first responders help health care workers help people in the community help local businesses just because i mean this is a struggle for everybody and and we're really blessed in our ability to help people and so that's really been my focus helping small businesses and help people who need help all right well thank you brother thank you for being an inspiration today for educating all of us and and just being very transparent with all the things you do man i appreciate you and i appreciate your family and hope you say hey i just got to say one thing chocolate thunder mikka hey you call your daddy chocolate thunder call me thunder no neither does her mother all right love it brother take care see mikka