Defining Moments with OZY: Mark Cuban (Full Episode) • A Hulu Original Documentary

[Music] mark cuban i've always been about what's new what's next and how am i getting there first from a kid who started out selling garbage bags door to door i don't know what it was i was always healthily afraid my dad used to always say you don't live in the world you were born into but there's something inside of you that makes you unique you just have to find it mark has become one of the richest men alive he awakens people through action he awakens people through leading by example i'm as competitive as anybody you've ever met and business is the ultimate sport he's using his platform to fight for what's right when i was growing up it was always very very clear to us that you treated everybody the same and he's also stirred controversy if i see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night i'm walking to the other side of the street he didn't say you know on a dark street i'm scared of people with hoodies following me in that case we probably all are it's black people and hoodies that trouble him if on that side of the street there's a white guy bald head tattoos everywhere i'm walking back to the other side of the street i think he was trying to educate people and he just said it the wrong way for the blue-collar billionaire marx had to learn some of life's most valuable lessons the hard way all you can do is admit that you were wrong which i was there's a long list of things i learned the most extraordinary lives follow undefined paths to find your voice you may need to journey into the unknown i'm carlos watson editor of ozzie and these are defining moments [Music] what up carlos hey man thanks good to see you again oh yeah absolutely you ready for all-star weekend i don't know it is cold it is cold in chicago oh i thought you were from pittsburgh though i wish you had good uh good blood and you know the one reason i left right right right oh my goodness i was born in pittsburgh pennsylvania in squirrel hill area of town we had a one bedroom where my brother brian and i and my parents lived my grandparents came over from ukraine and russia in the early 1900s and it was chabaninski i had a great uncle joseph who went to fight the communists in 1938 and never came back but he named himself joseph cuban and that's what changed it to cuban was mom and unfortunately my dad did upholstery in cars so like if you had a rip in this you take it to my dad and he'd sew it up my dad busted his ass worked six days a week straight blue collar my mom just did odd jobs right selling fruit baskets selling whatever she could hustle but it was never like we're an entrepreneurial family it was more like my dad would take me to his work and have me sweep the floors for five bucks a day and what he always told me i want you to see this because i don't want you to ever have to do it because he would come home from work just exhausted you know going you know 10 12 hour days six days a week you know and just sleeping the rest of the day but they were still worried about me like i remember when i was a junior in high school i think my mom got me a job trying to learn how to lay carpet because they wanted me to have a trade just in case all this business stuff that you know and i would try to learn stuff and my dad's like i have no idea what you're talking about none and so i had to figure it all out on my own so so but where do you think it came from then i don't know it's a good question you know they say some entrepreneurs are just born and maybe that was it my dad would play poker with his buddies and like every other kid i wanted a new pair of sneakers and it was like you know those tennis shoes you have right now they work right when you have a job you can buy whatever you want but as long as you're in this house those shoes look like that work and i'm like dad i'm 12 years old i can get a job and this buddy was like wait i can get you a job i've got all these boxes of garbage bags that you can sell i'm like okay you know i would go hi my name is mark i live down the street do you use garbage bags and i sold a box of 100 for six bucks they cost me three and i just started going door to door i probably had the world's first and only garbage bag route and made enough money to buy my shoes and you know learn how to sell so were you always expected to go to college it was always yeah you're going to college because my dad didn't want me to do the back breaking work that he was doing all my rewards as a kid were for reading you read 100 pages here's a dollar the one thing my parents would go out of their way for was for in terms of presence was books you want a book my dad will save up however much money he needs to save up to get me that book mark's early years had been shaped by the love and support of his parents but he wasn't immune to the undercurrent of racism and injustice that permeated pittsburgh in the early 70s when i was growing up the pittsburgh pirates were the first team to put up an all non-white lineup and i remember my friends listening to the game and having his father just end this and that hate the and them and da da da da it wasn't a bad neighborhood but there were issues i remember i was getting a drink at a water fountain in school and these two kids just walk up to me one holds me up the other just punches me in the stump and called me a and started fighting with me and i remember having to go to my dad and ask him what was a you know i haven't explained that's just derogatory slang for someone who's jewish i had my share of why am i in this fight i don't understand why i'm fighting my dad told me story we lost part of our family the holocaust his dad tried to open up a grocery store and he got shut down because we were jewish so when i was growing up it was always very very very clear to us that you treated everybody the same and as it turns out my uncle was a superintendent of a school district in washington dc in the 60s during that very turbulent time he wrote a book called the negro in america which was the very first academic textbook to really integrate the african-american experience into the american history story so there was definitely a background of inclusion mark cuban would draw on these early lessons in inclusion throughout his extraordinary career diversity is not just a word and it's not just a body count it's about recognizing the skill set that somebody different than you brings to the table for mark cuban shark tank is a way of paying it forward to the next generation of entrepreneurs there's something inside of you that makes you unique you just have to find it and that's what i want to encourage them to do right right one of those who mark has inspired is fellow mobile and business partner ryan williams mark awakens entrepreneurs and people and i can speak from personal experience through action you know at the end of the day he knows that it's incredible to have dreams and aspirations the only way to bring those to reality is to act and to lead and shark tank's a great testament to that to do this and get it out you need another hundred thousand dollars right how are you gonna get the other hundred i know i can get the other hundred thousand okay no i'll give you a hundred thousand dollars for 25 contingent that you raise the other hundred [Music] so there's a inspiration i'm sure comes from a place of empathy and understanding of how challenging and hard it is to navigate so much of our world and to build successful businesses as entrepreneurs helping elevate that next level of business leaders you know it's okay to get it wrong yeah it's okay to fail particularly when you're young [Music] mark's ability to learn from his failures has actually been one of his greatest keys to success i dropped out of high school and took classes at the university of pittsburgh because i wanted to challenge myself i'm like i think i'm smart i didn't try in high school but i get a do-over right by going to college mark did well enough to get accepted to indiana university then when i got to indiana i was registering for my first semester there's a gradual mba class in statistics and i've never taken a statistics class i'm like i need to know this right like if i can pass a graduate level statistics class when i'm 18 and basically a freshman at indiana university then this is all going to be easy because my goal was to do a back-ass half take all my hard classes first and not drink and then party like a madman and take freshman classes my junior and senior year it was great i mean i had this all planned out and so they let me register for this graduate level statistics and i got an a and i'm like oh shoot i can do this graduate level as a freshman as a freshman 18 years old right indiana university is also a place where basketball was and still is a religion mark was an avid sports fan and a better than average athlete i just wanted to play a contact sport and so i went out for rugby and started playing and met some of my best all-time friends and played four years at indiana and if you know anything about rugby parties from back then they're just outrageous that's doing flamos where you fill your mouth with lighter fluid and you know blow it on a match and just dumb dumb dumb we did having survived his years at indiana mark graduated in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in business if i had met you then were you like fully headed towards being an entrepreneur yeah i was oh you know i needed a job in search of that job mark followed a group of his friends from indiana to dallas [Music] you know i've always been surprised that you were in dallas why i don't immediately think of dallas as an entrepreneurial hub i didn't go to dallas because it was entrepreneurial when i graduated from indiana i had two requirements okay one my car could make it there and two what kind of car were you here that was warm i had a um 1977 fiat x19 but it was like special okay um it had a hole in the floorboard well like a yabba-dabba-doo yeah yeah that's exactly right you know and so it wasn't going to go that far so i couldn't make it to l.a i couldn't make it to florida there's only so many places i can go and i had some buddies that lived in dallas and they're like cubed you've got to come down there i'm like dallas right i never really thought about it he's like the weather's great the economy's good the women are beautiful i'm like i'm on my way stop it right there stop right there i was living six guys in a three-bedroom apartment i was just a way for them to reduce the rent right right right and so i didn't have a bed i didn't have a room i had a pile right and i got a job in a in a software store and that's what got me started i would take the pcs back and i would stay up all night just teach myself i would take the manuals like software manuals and read them rtfm read the freaking manual very quickly i learned that by putting in that extra time i knew stuff that people who went to college for this stuff and had advanced degrees in it didn't know because they only knew what they were taught in school and they weren't doing the work to keep up there's the people who wrote the software and then there's everybody else right and so if i can out hustle everybody else and know how to sell that software better than anybody know how to make it work better than anybody i can get paid ever since then that's been my edge being able to just learn whatever new technology came out and figuring out how to apply it to all the different businesses that i've touched so that i can get an advantage and then being able to sell it mark arrived in dallas at the dawn of the pc revolution he wanted to launch a company but he knew he'd need help i'd say defining moment was knowing i couldn't do it myself and having partners so martin woodall was my partner in micro solutions i'm not a details oriented guy i always needed somebody around me that was very detailed martin was the most anal human being i've ever met in my life i mean yeah it had to be perfect i would have the vision i'd be ready fire aim they were like okay slow your role we got to do this we got played by the roles here being self-aware and knowing what i'm good at and what i'm not good at and realizing it's okay to get help together they built micro solutions providing computers software and training to businesses we had been in business just a short while we had four employees maybe having eighty four thousand dollars in the bank and we got a call from the bank we've been cashing these checks through the drive drive-through where the payee has been whited out our receptionist she would white it out and write in her own name she was taking her money 82 out of 84 000 gone and i had a couple choices i quit i can go back to work went back to work after seven years mark and his partner sold micro solutions to compuserve for 6 million that taste of success left mark wanting more the internet hit and it's like okay i have this connectivity background i want to be able to use this to listen to indiana basketball sporting events you know anywhere in the world by using the internet there's got to be a way to figure it out and that was the start of the entire streaming industry never before in the history of the world can you come in and listen to almost any team from anywhere in the world we connect it to one of our 126 servers and boom it's available on audio net to the world started off as audionet turned in to broadcast.com technology is my strength sales are my strength i'm the first to realize that luck plays a huge part in it i happened to to have a company broadcast.com that went public at the right time i guess the other thing is like you see on shark tank i can look at any business i don't care what it is and in 10 seconds i know all about the business and so using that connecting it with just loving to learn connecting it with loving to know about new businesses that helps me get down to the bottom of an issue really really quickly mark's vision built broadcast.com a company that would take the stock market by storm it was the ipo heard round the world a stock that shot up 249 percent on its first day of trading last week i sold broadcast.com for 5.7 billion dollars i hadn't heard about you before then and all of a sudden you had sold a 5 billion dollar yeah 5.7 yeah yeah once you are a billionaire what motivates you i'm competitive i mean i'm as competitive as anybody you've ever met and business is the ultimate sport [Music] by 1999 mark cuban had become a bona fide billionaire and he was ready for his next challenge i've been into basketball as long as i could remember but it never dawned on me to buy a team because it never dawned on me i'd have that much money and then how did it come about i was a maverick season ticket holder and they were awful but i didn't care i just like to go to the game throughout the 90s the dallas mavericks had been down on their luck earning one of the worst win-loss records in the league it was the start of the 99-2000 season and then one day that it dawned on me like wait i can afford this now i can put my money where my mouth is but first mark would need to be approved by the nba to become an owner they put me in front of this big room of all the owners and they all grilled me because this is january of 2000 and it wasn't long after the cowboys had won some super bowls are you gonna be like that other owner in dallas and i'm like yeah he just won a couple super bowls a couple years ago so i sure hope so and he's changing the game and if it means raising hell i'm gonna raise hell yeah they weren't gonna approve me at all and then david pushed for me to get through stern did yep why do you think he did because i think he wanted some new blood i think he wanted a different perspective you know i was the 40 41 year old guy that didn't give a right i mean i would just have been one of the youngest owners by far yeah well here we go there we go well there's only one way this is a business but it's a business that i'm willing to commit as much money as it takes whatever energy funding um to make this team successful 285 million okay funny money let's go to work wow now that it's happened it's time to go to work and it's time to really focus on doing the things i need to do and first is learning getting fans into the arena and getting people excited and i think we're making significant progress there mark brought with him his sense of hustle and love for the game under his new leadership the morale and the scores began to improve within a few seasons the mavs became contenders for the nba championship and have you enjoyed it as much as you thought you would when we win it's awesome we finished the season and went 15 straight years without a losing season and that should do it for the dallas mavericks and the celebration will begin the dallas mavericks are nba champions the first title in franchise history but losing games hurts far worse than i ever possibly imagined it really does that's not rich guy speak that's not rich guy speak honestly here's carmelo if we lost the game i wouldn't talk to anybody for two days i would be so pissed when we lost in the 2006 finals i didn't go outside i didn't talk to anybody for a month month and a half the miami heat they've done it they win their first championship in franchise history if i'm in a business situation i can go in there help close the deal i can put my fingerprints on anything and hopefully make it better i can't make a jump shot as much as as hard as much as i'd love to be out on the court right when that file is called and i disagree with it or that you know we miss a free throw at the end of the game i'm helpless and there's no worse feeling to me than being helpless despite the losses mark cuban had taken a losing team and turned it around in his new role as team owner mark enjoyed being the focus of media attention and he bass in the glow of controversy mark shook up tradition and the nba with his unorthodox approach to ownership he ditched the elite skybox to hang out courtside closer to his players but his position near the court also put him within earshot of the referees he's not shy about voicing his opinion whereas i think you've got a lot of other owners who are more circumspect they won't tell you exactly how they're feeling whereas mark will tell you exactly what he's thinking mark's courtside antics drew attention and criticism at one game he yelled at a referee telling him he wasn't qualified to work at a dairy queen what's it called dairy queen responded by challenging the billionaire to scoop ice cream himself terry queen how can i help you mark accepted that challenge scoring big when it became a media bonanza [Music] the nba commissioner however didn't respond to mark's antics so favorably instead mark racked up in excess of three million dollars in fines more than any other owner in history jerry bus taught me the most of all the other owners he was like mark they gave me a hard time for giving magic johnson the 25 million a year contract i didn't care i did what i thought was right you come in here just say what's on your mind do what you know and it'll work out and he he was right they yelled at me and screamed at me and fined me but they changed but the controversy didn't end there an off-the-cuff comment on race evoked the killing of trayvon martin and landed him in the media crosshairs i know i'm prejudiced i know i'm bigoted in a lot of different ways you know and i've said this before if i see a black kid in a hoodie at night on the other side of the street bouncing you know i'm probably on the same side of the street i'm probably going to walk to the other side of the street if i see a white guy with a shaved head and lots of tattoos i'm going back to the other side of the street dallas mavericks owner mark cuban in the spotlight again the hoodie comment brings to mind trayvon martin the unarmed black teenager killed by neighborhood watchmen is the comment racist in in how you evaluated he's not he didn't say you know on a dark street i'm scared of people with hoodies following me in that case we probably all are it's black people in hoodies that trouble him that's a particular thing when he sees a certain people dressed a certain way that he pre-judges him he's being honest about it he's not saying that it's right i'm not saying that but i think he was trying to educate people and he just said it the wrong way amid the controversy mark stood by his words but he also recognized that he owed an apology you really you apologized for one portion of that and that was uh to trade on martin's family correct i've met and spent time with his family and i when i said it i hadn't considered that they might have to deal with all the media onslaught and that's not fair to them i try to be self-aware and just become a better person and smarter from it and you know i i there's a long list of things i learned for all the controversy mark had another challenge on the horizon this time within his own organization a hostile work environment for women when i read what happened here i can't put together how the person i know and have talked to for a long time okayed a lot of this stuff you know i [Music] a hostile work environment for women in the story former team president terdima ossery was accused of inappropriate conduct during his 18-year tenure with the team what message do you now know that this sent the other women in the office horrible that you basically told them hey one of the guys in this office can hit you and we will keep him still here coming to the office and sitting next to you you know i i wasn't involved i was involved on the basketball side and had a ceo that i trusted and he turned out to be a bad guy and that was my mistake but i learned a lot from it have you now dramatically changed the world oh i brought in somebody like like i said i need the right partner yeah and i had the wrong partner and brought in cynthia marshall who's incredible i've recognized that she's far better at these things than i am i'd like to apologize on behalf of the dallas mavericks organization to current and former employees i let her go and do her thing and she's really really good she saved my ass my values matter and so we've taken some action to show that we are about zero tolerance all you can do is admit that you were wrong which i i was and you know do your best to learn from it mark donated 10 million dollars to domestic violence awareness groups i think more important than the money is the example we can set the goal is for me to get out there and you know teach others from my experiences i think mark is just a really good guy and i think mark's always trying to do if he can the right thing and i think that's what's been happening [Music] and the experience opened his eyes to other problems in society they were taking the knee and they were being respectful i'll be proud of them i joined them because i think we've learned a lot since 2017 and this is really a unique point in time where we can grow as a society we can grow as a country become far more aware of the challenges that minority communities go through and look to move this country forward when it comes to race relationships drawing on the lessons of inclusion he learned as a child mark has dedicated his platform to supporting social justice what would you say if i had a room full of would-be young black entrepreneurs in front of you what kind of advice would you give i tell them one you're starting at a disadvantage right not everybody's going to accept you face value for who you are you're probably gonna have to start a little bit smaller but that's to your advantage because they don't see you coming something that i admired about mark is he's been out front in many ways talking about you know helping the underserved it's something that's real it's authentic it's genuine and it's something i think the world needs more of there's so many ways that young people of color can market to communities in particular that they know better than anybody that white middle-aged guys like me can't connect to that's a huge opportunity on this thursday night anxiety mounts over the spread of covid19 from a major market meltdown to new travel bans when covet 19 struck the united states went into lockdown impacting communities and families many businesses shut down including the nba mark we've got the shot of you reacting on the phone and seeing it first reaction and thought when you learn that the season's been suspended this is crazy this can't be true i mean it's not within the realm of possibilities it's just to seem more like out of a movie than reality [Music] as the nation struggled to cope with the pandemic mark moved into action when some of the things were coming up that we might not play games and this was yesterday i reached out to the folks at the arena and our folks at the mavs to find out you know what it would cost to support financially support people who aren't going to be able to come to work you know they get paid by the hour and and this was their source of income we've already started the process of having a program in place and i don't have any details to give but it's certainly something that's important to me from his earliest days in pittsburgh marx challenged himself to treat anyone he meets like family mark is someone who is action oriented he's not just about dreaming he's about doing what he did in supporting employees across the organization who were going to be out of work he practices in many ways compassionate directness which is something that i love it's really not about basketball or money i mean literally if if this thing is just exploding to the point where you know all of a sudden players and others have had you think about your family you know you want to really make sure you're doing this the right way you know because now it's it's much more personal mark's a leader who strives to be mindful that others have helped him get where he is today and he's always eager to pay it forward sources say mark cuban was able to reunite delante with his mother in dallas on monday a bystander actually caught some footage of the two of them together good job man cuban wrote i can just confirm that i found him and helped him the rest is up to dewante and his family to tell i've helped people and they've helped me and learning was the key to all of it i try to instill that in my kids you've got to learn how to figure it out because that's a skill there's nothing you can't learn that's everything what kind of dad are you um i think i'm a good dad you know i'm a fun dad you seem like you'd be a fun dad i'm a fun dad right yeah i mean i like to do stupid stuff i tell stupid stories you know i tell both my girls girls who know math and science dominate the world do you think all three will go into the business with you i think my oldest would do her own thing okay right the middle one she's not quite sure what she wants to and the youngest i think could be on that path unless he does something bigger and better which is what i want them to do my dad used to always say you don't live in the world you were born into and the world that they're going to be living in is different than what you and i have grown up with and it's going to have its own set of challenges if they feel good about themselves and chasing not necessarily their dreams but whatever it is that makes them feel good about themselves knowing they have to pay their own bills along the way then i'm happy with it hey mark i'm so pleasure so appreciative it yeah for sure [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Hulu

Views: 6,279

Keywords: hulu, defining moments, mark cuban, ozy, docuseries, shark tank, entrepreneur, billionaire, dallas mavericks

Id: bhYb10uO2Yc

Length: 29min 35sec (1775 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020