Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim
Speaker 2: Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Well, he's a billionaire with decades of experience playing a
Speaker 3: rich guy in the press. He took a stick to
Speaker 3: a TV network. He starred in a primetime reality show.
Speaker 3: He's a fan of Ain RAN's The fountain Head. He's
Speaker 3: a fixture on the Manaverse podcast circuit.
Speaker 4: Is this Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: He likes crypto sounds like Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's been mocked for being less accomplished and than
Speaker 3: his networth would suggest. And no, Carol, I'm not talking
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Mark Cuban.
Speaker 3: He's a sports mogul, a small business influencer, a media personality,
Speaker 3: a healthcare disruptor, and perhaps the ultimate Trump foil. Max
Speaker 3: Chafkin and John Tazzi profile Mark Cuban and the forthcoming
Speaker 3: new issue of Bloomberg Business Week. It's the July issue.
Speaker 3: It's out on newsstand soon, but you can read the
Speaker 3: story right now on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 3: Max is Bloomberg Business We call him this. He's also
Speaker 3: the co host of the Elining Podcast. John is Bloomberg
Speaker 3: News healthcare reporter. Both join us here in the Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Interactive Brokers studio.
Speaker 1: Max. I want to start with you. Wait, I want
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 4: Is it up in the food car court and you
Speaker 4: guys were grabbing some coffee and you're like that Mark
Speaker 4: Cuban guy and you're like, yeah, we gotta do a story.
Speaker 2: No. I mean the way the genesis of this is
Speaker 2: that John, who's been following the healthcare industry. You know,
Speaker 2: Cuban got on his radar because Cuban has been doing
Speaker 2: some really interesting things there. And where I got interested
Speaker 2: in it is all this buzz around Cuban as a
Speaker 2: political figure, and it seemed, you know, it seemed like
Speaker 2: an interesting thing because on one hand, he is this
Speaker 2: kind of somewhat goofy, somewhat unseerious reality TV personality. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, he's doing something serious in healthcare. And
Speaker 2: we've just learned that being a little goofy, being a
Speaker 2: little unserious sometimes it can work politically. It obviously works
Speaker 2: politically really well for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the serious stuff that he's doing
Speaker 3: in healthcare, cost plus drugs. John Tazzi, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: good portion of the piece that's dedicated to explaining the
Speaker 3: intricacies of buying certain drugs in the US, and I
Speaker 3: was shocked to find the price differences.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, Mark Cuban launed this company that launched
Speaker 5: in the public, you know, several years ago, started working
Speaker 5: on it with an entrepreneur in twenty eighteen, initially as
Speaker 5: kind of just an investment, just another kind of portfolio
Speaker 5: company put some money into, but he got really involved
Speaker 5: and became a co founder. And now this is sort
Speaker 5: of what he's spending a lot of his time on.
Speaker 5: He's going to conferences. He's going to like small wonky
Speaker 5: health conferences that you don't expect, you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of boldface names.
Speaker 3: At But there's something that really resonates with Americans about healthcare.
Speaker 3: You've written a lot about United Healthcare and the aftermath
Speaker 3: of of the murder of a healthcare executive here in
Speaker 3: New York in December, and the frustration that Americans had.
Speaker 3: There's something that's sort of visceral when it comes to
Speaker 3: tackling this problem. Yeah, and having someone like Mark Cuban
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And what he marked, what he did is he
Speaker 5: came in and looked at this market prescription drugs where
Speaker 5: there are just vast inefficiencies. There are things that make
Speaker 5: no sense, and we've written about them, we've talked about
Speaker 5: them here. You know, drugs that cost you know, thousands
Speaker 5: or tens of thousands of dollars in one place that
Speaker 5: you know are cost a tiny fraction of that for
Speaker 5: the person acquiring them, and you know, huge markups being
Speaker 5: taken in the middle And what he's trying to do
Speaker 5: is kind of go into those transactions and sort of
Speaker 5: take out the middleman and make these medications available for
Speaker 5: people paying cash without their insurance at a more affordable
Speaker 5: price than they sometimes get when they go through the
Speaker 5: traditional channels.
Speaker 4: I got to say, you wade into something like drug
Speaker 4: costs and healthcare, and all of a sudden you're you know,
Speaker 4: you're tackling what has been, as we've been talking, one
Speaker 4: of the biggest problems.
Speaker 2: That are around.
Speaker 4: And there are other billionaires who've been like tackling, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to trying to look for some solutions, whether it's uh,
Speaker 4: Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Jamie Diamond who teamed up. I remember,
Speaker 4: you know, we were all reporting and thinking, okay, they're
Speaker 4: going to be able to fix all of this. Having
Speaker 4: said that, you wade into an area like drug costs
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden it's a real political kind
Speaker 4: of field, right, and you wonder, Okay, what else does
Speaker 4: he want to do because it's a it's a big
Speaker 4: beast of a problem.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean there's something inherently politically political about
Speaker 2: talking about this stuff just because it's a thing that
Speaker 2: makes people angry. Also, you know, a lot of the
Speaker 2: solutions here are going to require some form of regulation
Speaker 2: or government spending. And also Cuban is just politically involved.
Speaker 2: I mean he was during the Harris campaign. 're in
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four election. He was like a really
Speaker 2: important surrogate for Kamala Harris. He was on the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: He was kind of crafting or attempting to essentially sell
Speaker 2: Harris to the business community and sell Harris as a
Speaker 2: moderate on economic issues. And that is sort of you know,
Speaker 2: if you think about different directions the Democratic Party could
Speaker 2: go in twenty twenty eight, you know, one of them
Speaker 2: would be some sort of moderate approach. And Cuban is
Speaker 2: very attractive and there are a lot of like Democratic
Speaker 2: political consultant types who are excited about this, a lot
Speaker 2: of Republican political consultant types who are thinking about this already,
Speaker 2: because not only does he have this kind of identity
Speaker 2: as a as a moderate, as a business guy, solutions oriented,
Speaker 2: but he's really good on camera and he's also good
Speaker 2: at sort of sounding like a real person. And that's
Speaker 2: the thing that kept coming up in my reporting how
Speaker 2: important that is. And when you look at when we
Speaker 2: talk to Cuban about like what went wrong with Harris,
Speaker 2: that's kind of what he Keety Cayden on. You know,
Speaker 2: she didn't know how to sell, that's what he said,
Speaker 2: and and that she you know, she wasn't herself. It's this,
Speaker 2: it's this kind of like incredibly difficult thing for a
Speaker 2: lot of politicians, and I think especially for the type
Speaker 2: person Mark Cuban is a business guy, somebody who hasn't
Speaker 2: been in that spotlight. To be able to thread that
Speaker 2: needle to sound like a normal person while also being moderate,
Speaker 2: like it makes him politically potent.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to go back to this comparison
Speaker 3: that I was talking about earlier. Then you guys laid
Speaker 3: that out perfectly. I read right from your story. You
Speaker 3: actually suggested Max to Mark Cuban that he's had a
Speaker 3: similar career trajectory to President Trump.
Speaker 1: What happened, he.
Speaker 2: Did not, he did not react well he can called
Speaker 2: it the meanest thing anybody's ever said to me. And
Speaker 2: John and I were sitting there with him, and I
Speaker 2: really did think for a second, you know, he's a
Speaker 2: big dude.
Speaker 1: He was gonna throw us out, I know.
Speaker 2: And the thing is he was kidding to some extent anyway.
Speaker 2: But he and Trump have been kind of publicly feuding
Speaker 2: for almost twenty years. It goes all the way back
Speaker 2: to The Apprentice, when shortly after Trump launched The Apprentice,
Speaker 2: Cuban launched his own show. They sort of traded punches
Speaker 2: back then, they traded verbal punches during the Obama administration.
Speaker 2: I think Cuban is sort of an effective critic of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, partly because they are kind of similar, because
Speaker 2: they are both sort of professional billionaires, guys who play
Speaker 2: billionaires on TV, and Cuban is able to sort of
Speaker 2: effectively point to some of the ways that Trump's you know, personality,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of like the character he plays doesn't
Speaker 2: really live up to the reality.
Speaker 4: However, he didn't carry his own reality show he didn't
Speaker 4: do as well as Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: And the other point that Cuban makes in terms of
Speaker 5: their differences is that he is a self made billionaire
Speaker 5: and you know, kind of worked his way up, started companies,
Speaker 5: you know, started selling trash bags door to door, you know,
Speaker 5: and that he has that background that the president doesn't.
Speaker 4: I love the highlight quote the difference Mark Cuban says
Speaker 4: is he never had to start from broke.
Speaker 2: You know. You brought up the difference between Apprentice and
Speaker 2: Shark Tank, and I do think that's an interesting it's
Speaker 2: an interesting contrast, and again it shows you why Cuban
Speaker 2: could be politically potent.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: On The Apprentice, it ends with this kind of ritual
Speaker 2: humiliation Donald Trump's firing someone, which course is very entertaining.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the reasons cuban show, which
Speaker 2: was called The Benefactor, didn't work is that Cuban was
Speaker 2: too nice.
Speaker 4: He you know, nice shark. I'm gonna I'm a huge
Speaker 4: fan of that show and he's always the nice shark.
Speaker 2: So Cuban playing this kind of nice guy on this
Speaker 2: as a supporting role that was really effective. The other
Speaker 2: thing I think made him sort of beloved both on
Speaker 2: Shark Tank. Well, initially on Shark Tank was just the
Speaker 2: fact that he's the richest and most successful person there.
Speaker 2: He's the only billionaire of those judges, and he is
Speaker 2: the one who's kind of back the goofy companies. He's
Speaker 2: taken not quite as seriously in the same way that
Speaker 2: cubans as a sports owner. As the owner of the Mavericks.
Speaker 2: Part of what made him fun as an owner is
Speaker 2: that he's the billionaire, but he's also acting like a fan.
Speaker 2: He's running up and down the court, he's acting like
Speaker 2: you know, goofy, he's booing, he's doing all this stuff
Speaker 2: that a billionaire would not normally do, and that, of
Speaker 2: course can be attractive.
Speaker 3: So that's the perfect segue to talk about the genesis
Speaker 3: of cost plus drugs because as a shark on Shark Tank,
Speaker 3: he had this inbox where he would get all these
Speaker 3: emails you Max and John Wright in the piece John
Speaker 3: and back in twenty twelve or a few years I
Speaker 3: should say perhaps a few years after that, because it
Speaker 3: was around the Martin Screlly time. Ye twenty eighteen is
Speaker 3: when this guy alexsk Oshmayansky got in touch with him.
Speaker 1: Yep, what happened yep.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: Alex Oshmyansky is a radiologist entrepreneur who is following the
Speaker 5: drama around drug prices and Martin Screlly raising prices of
Speaker 5: some older off patent drugs that attracted you know, a
Speaker 5: lot of attention, a lot of criticism, and he said,
Speaker 5: why don't we start a company where we can make
Speaker 5: some of these drugs that are in short supply and
Speaker 5: kind of solve some of these problems in the market
Speaker 5: and kind of eliminate the window for people to take
Speaker 5: advantage of shortages by raising prices. So he came to
Speaker 5: you know, he cold pitched Mark Cuban through an email
Speaker 5: with this idea. The I think the company was originally
Speaker 5: called something like Osh's Affordable Pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have the same ring to it.
Speaker 5: Doesn't have the same rings, but and you know, Cuban
Speaker 5: bit and he invested and kind of took an interest
Speaker 5: in the business, and it became what's now known as
Speaker 5: as cost Plus. A lot of people who know cost
Speaker 5: Plus know kind of the mail order website primarily for
Speaker 5: generic drugs, some brand drugs available and but mostly lower
Speaker 5: cost generics. But there are other elements they're trying to
Speaker 5: build out too. And you know what they articulate is
Speaker 5: really they're trying to kind of build an alternative to
Speaker 5: the existing pharmacy benefit managers the way most people get
Speaker 5: prescription drugs. They're trying to build something outside of that
Speaker 5: system to compete with it. It's not really there yet
Speaker 5: as a full service solution. You know, there are a
Speaker 5: number of drugs you can't get. You often can't use
Speaker 5: your insurance through the site. It sometimes can be much
Speaker 5: less expensive than going through your insurance, but it's not always.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you pay.
Speaker 4: You can't get JLP one drugs there.
Speaker 5: You can't get GLP ones for the most part.
Speaker 3: Right now, just an anecdote to share about cost Plus.
Speaker 3: I have a friend who works for a company that
Speaker 3: owns one of the large PBMs. I will not say
Speaker 3: which one it is. He told me a generic medication
Speaker 3: that he was trying to get, a rubber He works
Speaker 3: for one of these company. He's like, that's his insurance, right,
Speaker 3: he works for one of these companies. It was like
Speaker 3: an eighth of the price to get it at cost
Speaker 3: plus Drugs versus going through his own company.
Speaker 1: Well, so he works for one of these pbis.
Speaker 4: Which is which is amazing, which is crazy, right, So
Speaker 4: it makes me ask him just as we kind of
Speaker 4: wrap up, because you know, we know Zacumen, you know,
Speaker 4: in terms of a businessman, he's a billionaire sports he's
Speaker 4: doing this, you know, trying to solve some of the
Speaker 4: problems in the pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 2: I mean, is this.
Speaker 4: Enough for him, let me start with you Max, for
Speaker 4: him to ultimately get to the White House.
Speaker 2: So Cuban has basically so far going to do it,
Speaker 2: but he hasn't quite He isn't like one hundred percent
Speaker 2: ruled it out. You know, in various interviews with us
Speaker 2: he said not interested, I believe. But anyway, he's he's
Speaker 2: he's sort of pushed this down. You know, when you
Speaker 2: talk to people in democratic politics though, and in policies general,
Speaker 2: they say, is what Cuban is doing is number one,
Speaker 2: exactly what you would do if you were running for president.
Speaker 2: You know. He he's doing a lot of interviews with
Speaker 2: political journalists. He's going to in addition to healthcare events,
Speaker 2: he's going to political events. He is really putting himself
Speaker 2: out there in a way that raises his profile, that
Speaker 2: allows them to test messaging. And then the other thing
Speaker 2: is the way the Democratic Party is now basically somebody
Speaker 2: like Mark Cuban has to be taken seriously. There is
Speaker 2: as we saw with this in New York.
Speaker 1: City, it is wide open.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of potential paths for Democrats to take.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously one version of that is is
Speaker 2: kind of the progressive populist left. But there's another that
Speaker 2: is this kind of Mark Cuban style thing, and that
Speaker 2: lane is definitely going to be there during the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight primary. And it's kind of a question of
Speaker 2: who occupies it. Cuban being an entrepreneurial guy, being a
Speaker 2: guy who you know likes to be in the center
Speaker 2: of things. You would never say, never listen.
Speaker 4: I'll bets are off. I think I feel like when
Speaker 4: it comes to the political landscape, we got to unfortunately
Speaker 4: leave it there. It's an incredible deep dive and a
Speaker 4: great read. Max Chafkin Calmness at Bloomberg business Week, co
Speaker 4: host of the elon Ink podcast here in studio along
Speaker 4: with John Tazzi, healthcare reporter Bloomberg News. This is what
Speaker 4: we love about Bloomberg, these types of collaborations. Check it
Speaker 4: out the story and the upcoming new issue of Bloomberg
Speaker 4: BusinessWeek Magazine. Thank you, guys
Speaker 2: Ch