The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 42 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Cost Plus Drugs manufactures generic pills cheaper domestically than in Asia
“And so we can make generic pills here in the United States cheaper than what we can buy them for from India or China.”
Cuban: Vertically integrated healthcare firms and PBMs manipulate drug pricing
“The way the drug industry is now, the process that takes a drug, once it's been manufactured, put aside all their R&D and the development of the trials, Once that drug manufacturer starts making a drug, the process it has to go through to get to the patients i…”
Cuban: Drug manufacturers fear insurance company retaliation for supplying Cost Plus
“Part of the challenge is getting manufacturers to sell to us because they're afraid of the response they'll get from the insurance companies.”
Cuban: Mandating open drug distribution solves pricing problems better than regulation
“And when you hear all this talk about regulating prices of drugs by different politicians, they're not solving the problem.
They're creating different problems.
The reality is that the solution is, is trying to make sure that all these manufacturers sell not j…”
Cuban blames vertically integrated insurers, not manufacturers, for high insulin prices
“It's not the insulin manufacturers for the most part that are distorting everything.
It's the, these vertically integrated companies, not all are owned by insurance companies, but for the most part they are.”
Cuban: DAOs can align progressive and capitalist goals better than traditional unions
“There's these things called distributed autonomous organizations, DAO. Which I think can evolve to be the best of progressive goals of allowing workers to participate in all upside and capitalist goals where, you know, people who come up with great ideas using…”
Cuban: Feuding with NBA referees cost the Mavericks the 2006 championship
“And it set me off with a lot of those guys and probably cost me a championship in 2006.”
FDA $365,000 application fees are the primary barrier to domestic generics
“Our biggest inhibitor and why we haven't done it yet is all the fees that the FDA charges. So it's about 365,000 dollars to set up what's called an end on new drug application.”
Founders should ignore venture capitalists pushing top-line sales to avoid dilution
“What I'm going to tell you is to ignore your VC no matter what they say. If they tell you to chase sales, ignore them, because they'll be right in saying this is the only way to get huge, but you don't want to be in the position where you lose control of your …”
Cuban: Algorithmic content promotion is effectively an editorial choice
“Because when you're
Designing an algorithm or using AI and setting the goals of the AI that you've created, the neural networks you've created, you effectively are making an editorial choice to promote something.”
Cuban: Cost Plus Drugs prices are almost always lower than insurance copays
“All the complications that are introduced by these pharmacy benefit managers and the big companies that they are part of, we eliminate, and that allows us to sell our drugs almost always for less than the copay that you have for your insurance.”
Cuban: Cost Plus refuses to work with insurers that demand rebates
“Our mission is very straightforward.
We want to be the low cost provider of every drug we sell.
And with that definition, we can't work with an insurance company that
Is going to require rebates or anything like that.”
Cost Plus Drugs can switch robotics manufacturing lines in four hours
“We can change the drug we're making in a four hour period, you know, so we can make a one month or one year supply of something, then roll it over to another drug.”
Cuban: Cost Plus Drugs is working to expand into medical services
“And we're changing an industry and we won't stop just with pharmaceuticals. We'll, we're working to get into the medical side as well.”
Cuban has invested $100M+ into founders he has never met
“Believe it or not, I've probably invested over a hundred million dollars into people I've never met in my entire life from cold emails or cold calls or whatever it may be and done really well with those investments.”
Cost Plus Drugs is building a robotics-driven pharmaceutical plant in Dallas
“We're, you know, I mentioned we're spending a lot of money on a plant here in Dallas, and it's going to be driven by robotics so that we can go through and take any, a given pill and manufacture one year or two years worth of supply switch it over to another p…”
Cuban: If starting over, I would easily become a multimillionaire again
“Could I become a multi-millionaire, millionaire again? I have no doubt, because I would work hard enough, and I, and look, and I don't mean that to sound disrespectful. There's a lot of people who work really hard but in sales, you know, knowing what my sales …”
Mark Cuban says prioritizing sales over margins is the biggest startup mistake
“The biggest mistake startups make is chasing sales over margin dollars and profits.”
Mark Cuban warns major retail shelf space does not guarantee product sell-through
“So many companies have, you know, people just get all excited thinking, okay, this is validation. If I get into Target, if I get into Walmart, if I get into Whole Foods, That's validation that this is great, and they presume that being on their shelves is goin…”
Cuban: Kids care more about brand perception than actual skincare efficacy
“Kids typically aren't going to have the credit cards and they care more about the brand and what it looks like and how they're perceived than even the actual skincare, right?”
Mark Cuban warns overseas factories secretly add markups to every sourced material
“Because I guarantee you there's markup, they're adding markups to every step of the way.”
Mark Cuban reveals Shark Tank portfolio company Beatbox Beverages sold to Anheuser-Busch
“One of my companies Beatbox Beverages, that just got sold to Anheuser-Busch, a Shark Tank company”
Cuban: Smart contracts are Web3's equivalent to HTML and JavaScript
“Smart contracts really are just a programming language that are probably the equivalent of HTML or JavaScript for creating a website. Only these run on a decentralized distributed basis on top of a blockchain.”
Cuban: I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of any business
“Now, I don't, I'm not really involved in day-to-day operations of anything.”
Cost Plus Drugs charges a 15% markup, plus $3 handling and $5 shipping
“So if you go to costplusdrugs.com, put in the name of the drug, and if we carry it, we'll show you our cost. Right. And then we will show you our markup, which is 15%, Then we charge three dollars for handling through our pharmacy partner, TruePill, and five d…”
Cuban: Any $100M profit will fund new drug manufacturing or price cuts
“If it looked like I was making a hundred million dollars a year, I would either invest that in creating a new, you know, manufacturing existing drugs that I can get a license to, or I would lower my prices some more.”
Cuban: Nine of top 10 US companies except Berkshire are AI leaders
“And if you look at the top 10 market cap companies in the United States, all but Berkshire Hathaway with Warren Buffett are companies that are amazing at AI.”
Cuban: Early $30,000 AudioNet stakes grew to $22 million at sale
“And so we sold, you know, one percent chunks for 30,000 dollars to our friends. When we sold the company, those 30,000 dollar chunks were worth twenty two million dollars.”
Cuban: $285M Mavericks purchase was the highest price ever paid then
“When I bought the Mavs, everybody like, are you an idiot? It was the highest price ever paid for a sports team. Two hundred eighty-five million dollars, and everybody thought I was a moron.”
Cuban: Becoming a billionaire requires luck in addition to execution
“To be a billionaire, you got to get lucky, right? I started my company, you know, at a time when the stock market was going nuts, and that, that was my luck, and I was smart enough to do it, smart enough to run it, smart enough to execute on it, smart enough t…”
Guardian Bikes reshored 85% of manufacturing to Indiana using robotics and AI
“Guardian Bikes, move their manufacturing, 85% of it now to Indiana, the state of Indiana, because now with automation and AI and robotics, you can push your costs down.”
Cuban: Cost Plus Drugs will offer 2,000 medications by year-end
“And by the end of the year, we'll be up to 2000.”
Cuban: Cost Plus Drugs is the first company bearing my name
“I've never put my name on a company until now.”
Cuban plans nationwide drug manufacturing facilities as Cost Plus volume grows
“No, we won't be able to, you know, it's not going to turn out a billion dollars worth of drugs each and every year, but it's a starting point for us.
And once we're able to establish enough volume, we'll be able to build another one, then another one, you know…”
Cuban: Cost Plus Drugs is self-funded, even if it cuts into inheritance
“This is kind of like the one thing I've said, okay, sorry kids. You know, your inheritance is going to maybe reduced if it doesn't work. Just because it's that important to me.”
Cuban: MicroSolutions Sold to CompuServe for $6M, Netting Him $2M
“Sold it for six million dollars, gave a chunk of it to my employees, ended up with two million and Martin ended up with two million, and boom.”
Cuban: Made over $20M trading tech stocks in four years
“I mean, literally, you know, over the next four years, I made twenty-some million dollars.”
Cuban: I only attack Shark Tank contestants pitching scams
“If there's an entrepreneur who's got their life tied up in something, I'm not going to be mean, right? I'm going to be supportive and I'll come up with suggestions even if I'm not investing. But if you're trying to scam me, if you're trying to pull a quickie o…”
Cuban: My 70-company Shark Tank portfolio is worth over $20 million
“You know, if, you know, if I was going to value it, would I have more than twenty million of value? Absolutely. So out of the 70 give or take companies that I've invested in, I'd say two are out of business, two are out of business and just aren't smart enough…”