- Mark Cuban believes AI is the future—so much so that if he had to start all over, he’d spend every waking moment trying to master it.
Mark Cuban has made many “stupid decisions” in his career. He once thought selling powdered milk as a side hustle was a good idea, for example. Turns out, milk with a funny taste doesn’t sell well, he told a crowd at SXSW on Monday.
While these mistakes played a key role in making him a better businessperson, if he had to do it all over again today, he knows exactly what he’d be focused on day and night: artificial intelligence.
“If I was 16, 18, 20, 21 starting today, I would spend every waking minute learning about AI,” Cuban said at SXSW. “Even if I am sleeping, I am listening to podcasts talking about AI.”
Just by learning AI—and then teaching others about it—there are endless business opportunities, he said.
“If you’re just getting started today, just by going in there and learning it, your mind is just going to go nuts. As an entrepreneur, you’ll find a million different ways you can leverage this to either do something that’s more competitive yourself or to sell it to other companies,” he said.
His Gen Z strategy would center around learning NotebookLM, introducing it to every small business in town, and charging them $25/hour for a demo on how they can use AI to make their business more productive.
“Those people who put in the time are going to crush it,” Cuban said.
Attitude is just as important as AI skills
For years, Cuban has been vocal about his views that AI is the future—and those who neglect to embrace it will be left behind. In 2023, he told a Detroit policy conference, “I don’t care how big you are or how small you are, you have to learn about AI.”
While AI’s integration into education has made the barrier to entry into the business world easier, Cuban said it’s up to you to stay ahead of the game and figure out how the technology can transform a business need: “When you run with the elephants, there’s the quick and the dead. You’ve got to be better.”
But relying too much on AI can be a mistake.
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“AI is never the answer. AI is a tool. Whatever skills you have, you can use AI to amplify them,” he said.
Cuban, who has been a staple on Shark Tank for over a dozen seasons, said it’s not always the product itself that he looks for in a worthy investment opportunity. It’s often the entrepreneur and their attitude. Curiosity and a constant drive to innovate are among the characteristics he looks for.
“I look for somebody who loves their product or service so much, they think it’s a public service to sell,” he said.
While failing many times is sometimes inevitable in entrepreneurship, getting back up is the pathway to success.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail,” Cuban said. “You only have to be right one time.”