To round out the day’s schedule at TechCrunch50, Jason Calacanis interviewed Mark Cuban, the founder Broadcast.com, HDNet, and several other companies. He has also been an angel investor for several startups including SlideShare, Goowy, RedSwoosh, Box.net, Calacanis’ own Weblogs, Inc and Mahalo.
Below are our notes, which try to capture a fast-paced exchange that included Cuban’s entrepreneurial advice as well as his experience running sports franchises (the notes place emphasis, naturally, on the former).
You can also watch the interview in its entirety here.
Jason Calacanis (JS): What is this about? *Plays clip from Dancing with the Stars featuring Mark Cuban from last year*
Mark Cuban (MC): You know, I’ve watched only one of my dances. I was so lucky to get through that.
JS: It was kind of shocking – you were actually good.
MC: I wouldn’t take it that far. So let’s change the subject..You know the one thing I did learn: how to do the ass shake in front of 25 million people
JS: Why did you do Dancing with the Stars anyway?
MC: It was just a challenge. It was something I didn’t know how to do, it was live, and it was athletic. And on top of that, I had just got my hip replaced. So I could either go through rehab or go dancing with my wife Kim
JS: You’ve had a pretty amazing career. Your advice has been extremely pragmatic throughout this conference. You’re not exactly associated with pragmatism, given the size of the Broadcast.com deal
MC: You don’t think it was pragmatic to take that deal? Our last quarter was $23M+ per quarter. More than $100M per year. More than YouTube. We got 23 M shares of Yahoo as part of the deal. It was like we got 200 M dollars in real Yahoo stock. People don’t understand that back then we were screaming with over 100 M uniques per day. We had advertising – not only prerolls but inserted advertising. We had a test with a Texas AM football game where we inserted an audio ad. We bought a company called Simple Net that was all about user generated content. We started on the corporate side because the consumer side didn’t have broadband yet. So we sat down with people like Michael Dell and recorded videos for the net. So if I seem like I’m a cynic with web video, it’s because this stuff is all 10 years old. We’re just going through all of it again after the bust
JC: I feel like you get an unfair wrap with all this. People don’t know you had multiple businesses before Broadband
MC: I did, and I “retired” when I was 30. My goal was to drink with as many people in as many countries as possible. I sold a company and all I wanted was a lifetime pass for American Airlines. They had them for $125,000 for two people. I used to go into bars and ask women if they wanted to go on trips. But then, one of my buddies at Goldman said we should start a hedge fund and three years later we sold if for a lot of money. I was still drinking and traveling when I was asked to try streaming Indiana basketball games over the internet. I was reluctant because I already had my FU money but I took a look and put up some of my money. My first business card had Vice President on it because I didnt want to work. Before you could do live streaming, we figured it out and did it from there.
JC: After Broadband, you’ve gotten even more active than before. Why are you doing all this now? Are all these projects for fun? Movies and basketball?
MC: I’m a competitive person. Business is a much more competitive sport than any real sport. It’s 24×7x365. I’m a business adrenaline junky. Once I didn’t have to pay the bills, the best challenges were to come up with stuff that people said couldn’t be done. So when I started HDNet, people thought that it was stupid – HD TVs would never go mainstream. People said that consumers couldn’t tell the difference between HD and regular TVs anyway. So I put my money where my mouth was. And then I took a look at the movie business. I’m not creative but it looked fun and could provide content for HDNet. Plus I thought there was a better way to sell movies. So we decided to make a film for $750,000. I like to look at industries I just know are messed up. Everyone’s looking in one direction and I look in the other. We started Magnolia Pictures for distribution with the idea that we could provide movies where and when people want them. All our DVDs are not copy protected. If you want to copy them, please go out and do that.
JC: So you have all these businesses – a movie production company, a cinema, Magnolia, HDNet. How is it all going?
MC: Landmark, HDNet, and Magnolia are all making money. 2929 Entertainment is not making money yet but will in about a year. In aggregate, making money. I think we’re going to save the independent film business. Right now there are 600+ independent films per year, about 100 get theatrical distribution, about 10 make money. The whole process is broken so why don’t we tweak it even more? We created Ultra VOD that takes buzz around movies and puts it out to cable video on demand before they hit theaters. Why would we do that? There are so many pay-per-view commercials because they work. VOD sales make money and promote a movie. We sell it at a premium and because the cable companies get half, they promote the hell out of them. If we do $0.5M even before it hits theaters, we’re doing well. We recover lots of our costs. All of this is just built for more. On the flip side, the only national theater chain that will play those movies is Landmark. The others refuse because of the prerelease.
JC: What about the festivals? Does it disqualify you to do prerelease?
MC: People say you can’t win Academy Awards with prereleased films but all you do is put it in the theaters once when no one will see it. Then you qualify. The guy who runs the theater association called me a “devil”. Someone else has called my strategy the worst thing to happen to movies. But independent film creators think I have something going.
JC: What do you think when you look at BitTorrent and all the movie downloads there? Any business opportunity there?
MC: You can’t really stop it. People with the time will do it but others won’t. Lots of people just download movies and never watch them. People often pay for stuff for the convenience.
JC: How long have you had the Mavericks?
MC: 8 years. I let Dirk Nowitsky do what he wanted to do. It got voted worse franchise in business right before a bought it. It was worth $285M when bought, but now it’s about twice that much. You can beat yourself against the wall and they’re like stop stop stop but now we know I’m right. I’m quieter now because people listen. Before no one would listen. We try to be reasonable with seat prices when we’re both good and bad, because who knows when you’ll suck and fans will revolt.
JC: Let’s talk about the disaster that is the Knicks…
MC: They’ll be better this year
JC: When you look at the franchise, how do…
MC: If there was a template for success in sports, everyone would follow it. You do the best you can and trust the people you trust. I’ve learned the number one job of a pro manager is not to win championships but to keep their job.
JC: The thing you’re probably most notorious for is the whole Steve Nash thing. Looking back on it, was it the wrong move or…?
MC: In hindsight it was the right move but it was sad. We’ve all had situations where we worked with someone and developed emotional relationships, and Steve Nash and I had fun. But thats the way it works, you move on. I was terrified when he left.
JC: Let’s talk about the blog for a second. You were an angel investor in Weblogs. You were one of the first major figures to get into blogging.
MC: You know there’s only so much time for spell checking. It’s either going to be brutal or youre going to do the same thing all the time. Its been 4.5 years since I started.
JC: Theres usually a relationship between how successful someone has been and how quiet they become.
MC: In the past people used to tell me to shut up a bit. But what I believe is to put out your opinion and let everyone else react. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. People are afraid to put our their opinions and get push back.
JC: You invented the word “splogs”..
MC: Yea I wanted to be the one to invent a word.
JC: You do a lot of investing. Two of my companies. How do you do your investments?
MC: I just trust the person. I dont make as many as I did now with the Cubs thing and HDnet. But id say 80 percent of the deals I’ve done I’ve never met the people. Whatever you can say in a meeting you can put in an email. If I have questions, Ill tell you via email. With RedSwoosh, we met once in Las Vegas and never again. Blake Rose from IceRocket, I wouldnt know him if I walked down the street, but I might have emails with him 5-10 emails a day.
JC: People ask me for your phone number and I dont even have it cause we dont talk on the phone
MC: I use a sidekick because of the keyboard
JC: Who’s the entrepreneur you respect most? Current or past?
MC: I guess Bill Gates. Larry Ellison I respect. You know, old school entrepreneurs, it was just diffferent. There was a different crede. I used to want to be profitable every month, before going IPO. But then later I accepted running at a loss. From the Netscape moving on, that’s what has happened since — the whole idea now is to get pageviews and then figure out a revenue model. I think entrepreneurs these days have been cheated because for them, its not about understanding how to make money. But when the money goes dry, you’re shit out of luck. When the bubble burst, 9 out of 10 businesses went away. With weblogs, our mantra was sales cures all. We used to talk about bottom line, not top line. It always came down to what you’re putting into your pocket. I want a cash-in-pocket strategy not an exit strategy.When you walk down these halls, you dont have people making money yet.
JC: I dont know if you’re Democratic, Republican, or Lbertarian, You hate politics, but how screwed up have the last couple of years been? How about the shape of the country?
MC: I dont think the country’s in bad shape because theres all this entrepreneurial spirit here and elsewhere. That’ll never stop. People talk about taxes but thats not relevant to the success and creation of businesses in general. But boy, everyone in Washington – old and proposed – is doing everything they can to screw things up. No one can turn around Yahoo yet alone the country. I’ll probably vote for the person that’ll do the least, stay out of the way.
JC: You see guys like Bloomberg doing a kick ass job. Do they ever approach you for politics?
MC: I think political people are afraid of me. Thats the loose canon thing. There’s a lot to like about Obama but his economic policy is ridiculous. He talks too much about spending until the cows come home.
JC: Whats the best piece of advice you can give a young entrepreneur?
MC: Ill tell you what I learned from Bobby Knight: everybody’s got the will to win but when it comes time to doing something, it’s always about someone else. Not many people have the will to prepare. You got to be willing to know your product and environment better than anybody. No matter what you do there is someone out there trying to kick your ass. You got to be the smartest guy in the room about your product. Then you need to have a revenue source. You need a company with a revenue to make money. Concept, competition, and where the money is — plus something you love doing. I’ve never had a day of work. When I die I want to come back as me.
Q&A
What do you do to educate yourself?
Pre-internet: stacks of books and magazines. I have PCweek magazines going back 10 years. I would read 2-3 hours per day of regular stuff.
Now online: I need a break because I spend so much time reading. If theres something I get into, I won’t stop. I read a lot of industry trade publications for cable now.
How do people reach you?
Send me an email and in three paragraphs or less, tell me about your business. Dont say you need an NDA or want a call. Just tell me how youre going to make money and how I’m going to add value. Give me a URL if you have a website, I’ll figure it out. 5% of the people will hear back from me.
What are you going to do with the Cubs?
I gotta buy them first. It just keeps getting more and more complicated. We’re in the process of due diligence. I have a group doing basic due diligence.
Can you talk about what’s fullfulling about businesses?
Winning, absorbing the journey and the destination. When all of it comes together, whether it’s something you started or took over, you get to look at yourself and everyone around you. Sports bonds families; different generations can talk together about sports. It’s the same within a business.
How do you pick a team for a startup?
I’ve always been a driver from a tech perspective so it’s been easy to find people who complement me. Finding someone who you trust and who complements you is important. It’s easier to find people you trust who are cheap and can be trained. Believing in the business is important too. The worst place to hire is the Silicon valley because everyone’s a hero in their own mind. There are great people everywhere you can find. The poeple I dont like to work with are people like me. I need people who can compliment my skill set, people who can do the nitty gritty with me. People who will be good verse look good.
What’s the biggest change you’ve made in your life that has changed your career?
Realizing I was a terrible employee. Getting fired for selling on commission rather than cleaning floors. Also, before you have kids and get a mortgage, thats the time to go after it. I cant tell you how many girlriends I’ve had that said “me or the business”, and I said “whats your name?”
How do you narrow down opportunities to the ones you get involved in?
You can drown in opportunity. We all have this aversion to finishing work because once you get into it, it gets mundane. Someone always seems to have a better idea. Unless I really ike something, I dont do it. I’m only ever a strategic investor.
What a guy!
Best part of the interview when he said if you gonna spout off out the mouth with him you better have some product or substance to back it up. Alot of chatters hide there identity and spout off nonsense every chance they get. To all the undercover comment haters its time to come out of the closet. If you dont have any product or substance on the internet and dont have nothing good to say, just shut up and watch the ones that do. I reopened my vision of mark when he went on Dancing with the stars. That took wevos. Marks the Man. A billionaire is always right! Keep slapping down all those haters mark. :) How dare they challenge your presence!
TeamLocator.com
Oh look, the domain squatter found a reason to reply to the very first comment so he could “showcase” (read: spam) his “Vertical Location Sites” to the top of the comment section.
Dude, you are a true shit-pile. You have no technical competence and your concept sucks. Owning domains is one person business, not a company. Please shut up!!!
Really, a turd again? He needs more imagination.
if that guy was so smart, he would have understood that obama’s economic policy stands on ecology and its potential for startups, something VCs are really getting into. Oh wait, sport is more important…
Haha yeah Cuban is awesome. But You know whats hilarious? That Jason Calacanis guy…he’s such a dork pretending he knows what he is talking about…who are the Nicks? Its Knicks dork!
A turd again?
I really like Cuban, he speaks his mind and cuts through all of the bull. There are a lot of great ideas out there but currently right night many ideas are techie brain lusts without and market need to fill and his Vulcan mind grip analogy was hilarious.
You’re either extremely proficient at managing high stress levels or you’re wishing no one would challenge you. There’s no middle ground for Cuban.
Cuban was awesome. The past 2 days have been awesome (cant wait for tomorrows lineup). Thank you so much for the live video feed…I kind of hated/trolled on what I thought was pretentiousness (tc50 v demo), but this conference has blown away my preconceived notions.
All I can say is thank you very much!
wow. glad we could turn you around Dave. seriously.
You rock arrington!
now that i think about it, its pretty badass to be able to see this whole thing through live web stream. i didnt have to pay all that money yet i still have access to it as if i was there.
really awesome that you found a biz model to make it free to most people yet turn a profit — while being such a successful event at that same time.
many thanks
video?
VIDEO!?!??
http://www.ustr...recorded/700958
Wow, what a guy indeed. I’m a huge fan of Cuban!
(btw Mark, there’s a typo – Magnolia for “distrubution”! )
He says “send me an email and in three paragraphs or less tell me about your business”. OK, so what’s his email address?
he also said “mark@hd.net”
I didn’t see that. Thanks. I have something he may respond to.
Is this adress really working?
Talked to Mark tonight and yes, I can confirm that his email works. I talked to him about our article on 10 Rules For Mark Cuban To Invest In Your Company and he had already read it by the time I introduced myself at the W hotel this evening. Very nice guy. Read the article, he is going to link to it. tinyCrunch.com. I also provide his alternate email address on the site for those that don’t hear back from him right away. Cheers.
Talked to Mark tonight and yes, I can confirm that his email works. I talked to him about our article that was written on him on tinyCrunnch,and as I introduced myself to him at the W hotel this evening he had already read his email and the article. Very nice guy. I provide his alternative email on the site as well for interested readers.
Great great interview with Cuban. That guy has lots of great wisdom. I love what tinyCrunch did with the 10 Rules To Follow For Mark Cuban to invest in your company. That’s really cool. you guys should link to that.
Damn, he had the same goal as me. Go to as many different countries and drink with people.
when he dies, he wants to come back as himself and disappoint everyone else (especially dallas mavericks fans)
great interview. enjoyed every moment.
michael, jason, mark, and everyone else included… great job.
only wish i would have been able to attend, but being able to watch it stream daily has been good enough, so thank you. all 3500+ thank you.
Mark Cuban is so full of himself, but it’s great. He’s a smart guy. I watched the interview streaming today and really enjoyed it…. hope it’s available on YouTube or something in the future.
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Wow, you didn’t even make an attempt at an on-topic comment.
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I had the opportunity to speak with Mark today as he made himself readily available to entrepreneurs in the audience.
What did he tell me?
“No balls, no babies!”
ohh i seee………. well i must say cool…………
Mark Cuban is someone all aspiring entrepreneurs should listen to. Focus on the concept, competition, and MAKE MONEY. “Build and rev model later” is idiotic.
All great companies knew how they would make money (Microsoft, Google, SalesForce.com, etc.)…other got lucky (YouTube, Facebook?). Also, love the history lesson here. Online video has been around for a while, it wasn’t as pervasive as today but it was making money.
If you listen to the pioneers you’ll have a better chance of success: Mark Cuban, Jim Clark, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Marc Andreseen. I love TechCrunch for the coverage and insight, but read Blogmaverick.com and PMarca (http://blog.pmarca.com) and get some entrepenurial insight.
In the odd case you see this, thanks Mark… I’ll try getting intouch (introduced or through blogmaverick.com) and hope I’m one of the lucky 5%. We’re developing something pretty cool, know the competition and market cold, and have a couple of great clients signed on already – making money!
Jaafer
http://www.sensidea.com
@ MARK. Could you guys clean up the spam on this page?
I watched the whole interview on Ustream.
This was IMO One of the Best Interviews i have ever seen. Great insight into Mark’s mindset personally and professionally. I couldn’t believe how candid he was.
Jason I want to congratulate you as well for a Job superbly done. I’ve noticed your remarks all throughout the event and you ask the right questions every time.
Fantastic Job Guys, especially for making a live stream possible.
Faramarz
Toronto
P.S. DotSPots, Postbox and FitBit are the top so far in my eyes.
Mark Cuban: “When I die, I want to come back as me” …me too.
Me too, when I die, I want to come back as Mark Cuban.
Where’s the video?
hello {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/SVZJaei9NM_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”hello ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/Ni15HzFXqG”}}}
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I want to be Mark Cuban in my next life too. Except maybe taller.
What an INTERVIEW! Greetings from 3rd world; from Bangladesh Mr. Cuban.
Great interview, Jason!
Only because of Mark Cuban…Not Jason! How much money is Mahalo making now? i bet investors are gonna lose a fortune on that! I heard in an interview when someone asked “how are you going to make money and can you keep this up” and Jason replied “ummm..ahh…we can survive for 2 more years before we run outta funds…2 YEARS?!?!!? YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY INVESTORS PUT IN YOUR COMPANY? YOURE GONNA BURN 100 Million in 2 years?!?! GOOGLE is gonna tear your apart…GO mark cuban!!!!
Dude Cuban is tall. He just looks small next to Dirk. Cuban’s got to be 6′3′ at least.
Cuban is awesome. But man, techcrunch presenting companies just don’t seem to cut it anymore…I have no idea how some of these comps are gonna succeed…just my opinion but I am sure otheres feel the same way.
Can’t stand Cuban….broadcast.com was lame…in hindsight, I’m sure Yahoo now wishes they didn’t pay 10 cents for it and are now thinking “what the f were we thinking”. Cuban got lucky, that’s all.
Oh and BTW, the guy needs some SERIOUS grooming tips. He looks like a total bum at the Mavs games.
Why would he care about grooming tips? Sure broadcast.com was lucky; he admits that. But what about MicroSolutions, Hdnet.com, the Mavs, his hedge fund, his stock returns, etc? He did lucky, but his success certainly wasn’t an accident.
whats his email address?…
This guy is the guy to listen.
Video here:
http://www.ustr...recorded/700958
“When I die I want to come back as me”
No your Ego would have doubled in size by that point.
I would like to thank all the TechCrunch Staff and all TechCrunch50 staff who made this possible as its very valuable information to all potential start up founders whether they were able to attend or have to take notes this way by reading the articles and listening to the ustream casts..
THANK YOU
what’s mark’s email address ?
-Brian
please tell me you know that the Knicks are not spelled “Nicks”
hahahahaahaah what Nicks hahahahah whatta total dork.
He’s an inspiration to a lot of people and I have so much respect for him and how is is willing to speak his mind and share his opinions and could care less what anyone has to say about it. He does by proving that he can, and he does. The only thing is I’m a huge Mets fan, so stay out of the NL with the Cubs Mark.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
I’m interested in (and agree with) Cuban’s observation that “It’s easier to find people you trust who are cheap and can be trained. Believing in the business is important too…. There are great people everywhere you can find.” This is consistent with evidence that experienced people often bring so much baggage that it weakens their job performance. Go to Evidence Soup for details (”Some evidence contradicts conventional wisdom about hiring experienced people: Knowledge and experience are two very different things.”).
Excellent interview!!
Douchebag. Quiet down, the adults are speaking.
Very interesting guy, would love to tackle some of the stuff he i doing. Managing companies, sports teams etc. At least one can dream.
I dunno man, Kinda hard to argue with logic now isnt it?
Jumps
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
Mark Cuban will perhaps go down as the greatest entrepreneur ever. He has a list of accomplishments that cannot be argued against. A true maverick, and an inspiration to us all.
Can anyone from TC verify that is the email address for Mark Cuban?
Awesome interview.
“JC: Let’s talk about the disaster that is the Nicks…” It’s Knicks. And you also spelled “Libertarian” wrong.
Not at all a big deal, but I notice these things. ;)