Is there some reason to think Cuban has some useful thoughts here?
He has done well for himself but he seems more than willing to make quips well outside of his knowledge base. Specifically I'm thinking of some off the cuff tweets regarding personal healthcare that seemed to be pretty far off base.
Maybe that was a one off thing but I recall some others even regarding personal finance that seemed questionable.
This is an example of him arguing with a MD. Cuban takes an issue with the doctor stating that consumer driven health care from non medical professionals is responsible for overuse of antibiotics. Cuban gets heated and dismisses the doctor as a quack when the doctor makes a completely legitimate point.
Mark Cuban, like all successful people in life, is great at providing a loud opinion on everything and especially with areas that aren't his expertise.
That doctor was selling a supplement. Supplement sales are largely scams, even the ones that are "developed by doctors".
Also, its name is almost certainly designed to confuse consumers by sounding similar to "Z-Pak", aka azithromycin, which is an antibiotic.
I'm not sure why we should expect doctors to be experts on the market forces behind antibiotic use, and there's plenty of reason to be skeptical of that specific doctor's motives.
Forget Cuban in here.Just a few hours ago I was talking with my sister about starting something similar. The product is cheap to manufacture, almost no regulations, no guarantees that it will work and the best part is that you can charge arbitrary amounts for it.
The doctor's 'story' is a bit random.Not quite sure how things are done in the US, however in most parts of the world no self respecting doctor would prescribe antibiotics for viral infections. Here,in Britain,every GP practice is wallpapered with posters explaining this as well.
I'm not an expert here but I believe the argument is that because it's consumer driven if a patient wants antibiotics then they can just shop around doctors until they find one willing to prescribe. Plus of course, drug manufacturers aggressively pitching their product to doctors.
Is there some reason to think that Altman has any useful insight here? Really.
And people are calling out Cuban as being a one hit wonder. Altman doesn't even have that, Path was an abject failure. He's just been appointed to his roost by the SV overlords.
He's been almost as publicly known for 20 years and certainly winning the title in 2011 gave him more prestige.
He'd make a decent candidate though. He's a Democrat (I guess he could run as a Republican, too) from the South with a bigger built-in fanbase than anyone else mentioned in this comment thread. He's run his organization for a long time with advanced stats, so he's no dinosaur. He's Jewish (if that matters, but it's nice having more diversity). Seemingly very healthy and relatively young, and no existing political career so he can cast himself as a ... maverick.
He's made a number of missteps, but he's also pretty good at turning those to his advantage. He's a minor god here in Dallas. If we're in an era where popularity/money is what wins elections, I feel like you could do much worse than him, and I'd trust him way way more than Trump and feel like he'd have the potential for lots more interesting change than Biden.
Howard Schultz and Mike Bloomberg fell for this trap too, and it didn't turn out well for them.
It must be difficult to get honest advice as a billionaire, because these guys seem to be quite uninformed about how unpopular they actually turn out to be in the political arena.
I'm certain it is hard to get that advice, because it's pretty hard to get out of your own way, success certainly ain't going to make it easier.
You're completely correct about both of those guys, but Bloomberg showed an incredibly lack of charisma in his run and Schultz is known, but I really think yall are underrating how popular Cuban is for common people.
The ESPN demographic is a lot bigger than the HN techie demographic.
> Is there some reason to think Cuban has some useful thoughts here?
It seems to me that the most effective trait in a politician is strategic decision-making, capability of applying abstract thinking to different situations (which comes particularly handy during crises), and figuring out how to get the right people together and get them to cooperate.
All of these also strike me as traits in executives and effective managers, which is likely why we tend to organically gravitate towards them in politics.
Whether Cuban can be regarded as an effective executive is debatable, I have no opinion on that.
The problem is that it is hard to differentiate between lucky idiots who failed upwards, and actually capable executives, who know when to defer to expertise.
Executives are judged on results - which are heavily influenced by circumstances that can be entirely outside the executive's control.
I've been reading his posts on LinkedIn. He seems to be advocating for businesses to treat their employees loyally now or fear the social backlash (reputation hit) when we come out of crisis.
I have no idea about his previous tweets and I'm not sure I care.
The list consists of CEOs of many companies from different states and senators. Since each state is impacted differently and some are in better/worse situation than others, every company's opinion matters. There are also CEOs/business people from different venues like restaurants, NBA, NFL, UFC, Disney and other parks, bars etc. I think 200 might be too low. 200 divided by 50 states is around 4 per state.
Thiel and Musk have a track record of success though. Yes, they're lucky, but they also seem to be smart and capable.
Cuban is a one-hit-wonder that sold a domain (and a dream) to Yahoo at the height of the dot com bubble.
They don't seem particularly comparable.
Edit: to respond to the comments below, no I'm not saying he's not successful, or that he's not smart. I'm only saying in tech and startup circles, he's no Thiel or Musk.
> Thiel and Musk have a track record of success though. Yes, they're lucky, but they also seem to be smart and capable.
Thinking someone has expertise in X therefore they are good source for analysis on Y is the logical fallacy I linked to above.
Contrary to what silicon valley believes, there is no such thing as being "smart" in a general sense. You can be capable in certain things, maybe you are faster to learn in others.
That doesn't mean any founder with a billion $ exit should be asked about public policy.
Both of those guys have a track record of plowing more money into money, with their own failures.
It's just sports, but winning a title isn't nothing, and if you've followed his sports career, he was big into advanced stats decently early and the Mavs are as good as anyone at finding diamonds in the rough.
There's obviously Dirk and Doncic, but they were also really close on getting Giannis. That shows some kind of insight. Not to mention, small ball dominates the league today, but the Don Nelson Mavs were doing that in 2003.
I know it is just sports, but sports are some of the most competitive domains in the world, with the ability to innovate, which he has done. I don't think HN's preference for tech should just ignore what he's accomplished.
Don't forget, PG and YC are only what they are because Viaweb was purchased in the same wave as Broadcast. Neither of those companies matter today.
On what basis is he a one-hit-wonder? Just because his endeavors didn’t progress to building rockets or big data ML for the gov, and instead to building a winning NBA team and one of most successful ongoing reality “startup” tv shows, he is somehow less-than?
Let's just be clear that the reason SpaceX builds great rockets is... not exactly rooted in Musk. He was too busy sleeping on the Tesla production floor.
If you want to look for the leaders there, Gwynne Shotwell & Tom Mueller is who should be on your radar.
Ai sure, but I personally put as much stock into either of their opinions as I do Cubans, which is, about as much stock I'd give to the opinion of any other reasonably smart person. Nothing special, because it's out of their domain of expertise. Nobody is an expert on "politics" in general. Some people are experts in running campaigns. Some people are experts in Keynesian economic theory. Some people are experts in healthcare. Some are experts in getting legislation passed and in understanding the machinations of power in Congress. Some are good executives able to hold together a broad set of options and make good calls. Nobody is an expert in all aspects of "politics"
I generally have a positive opinion of Cuban, but it's not via that approach. Generally speaking, I've just liked most of what I've seen of him, and disliked very little. Plus, he seems willing to challenge the status quo, which I weight fairly heavily.
The presence of Cuban helps me to feel more at ease with the state of the world.. if celebrities I recognize seem to be okay with what is happening what do I have to fear?
> Is there some reason to think Cuban has some useful thoughts here?
Sure. He has invested into hundreds of businesses of every size spanning two decades. He has intimate experience with the operations of small and large size businesses of most every type, along with their operating requirements in all regards.
A huge part of the recovery is getting small, medium, large businesses all back to functioning properly. From his perch, he sees a lot of what's going on at multiple levels. He is one of the couple hundred prominent business persons selected for Trump's recovery advisory council.
He knows his stuff and he keeps close tabs on all of his investments (and the broader economic environment), which is remarkable given the expanded scope of his activities. I've done business with Mark in the past and can vouch for all of this personally. People often have wide-ranging responses to him based on his outsized personality, however he is very sharp, he's a smart guy and understands business at a high level of competency. People that dig on him by saying he's just a lucky dotcom billionaire, don't actually know him.
edit: so let's hear your retort, downvote brigade.
I'm probably one of the only people in this thread qualified to speak to the actual question the parent posed, as I have years of experience being in business with Cuban. I know how he operates and how he deals with businesses. Everybody else here is talking out of their ass.
He was an executive producer for the movie 'The Road' (a 2009 American post-apocalyptic survival film) so he at least has a passing interest in the topic.
He has done well for himself but he seems more than willing to make quips well outside of his knowledge base. Specifically I'm thinking of some off the cuff tweets regarding personal healthcare that seemed to be pretty far off base.
Maybe that was a one off thing but I recall some others even regarding personal finance that seemed questionable.