When Mark Cuban It feels spicy, he will always let you know. The billionaire businessman, basketball owner and shark tank The businessman lit up WIRED’s The Big Interview event on Tuesday, dropping hot takes on Elon Musk, the pharmaceutical industry, and why he thinks “couch fucking” and Gary Gensler’s crypto policy cost Kamala Harris the election.
In a chat with WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode, Cuban touted the trajectory of Cost Plus Drugs, the pharmaceutical company he co-founded in 2022. By offering transparency on costs and pricing policies, Cuban says his company has been able to revolutionize the industry pharmaceutical, offering consumers medicines. as droxidopa for something like $20 a month, compared to the more than $3,000 a month that was quoted to uninsured patients.
“We’ve lowered the price of (one of our 2,500 drugs) every day of the week for 18 months,” Cuban boasted, saying the company has also had great success publishing its full price list, something it has always been incredibly difficult to obtain. other drug providers to consumers and researchers alike.
Now, Cuban says, studies have come out showing that if Medicare purchased, for example, nine specific drugs from Cost Plus Drugs instead of its other sources, the government would save billions of dollars, something that not only shows the inflation of the healthcare system. but also the tangible effect that a well-funded company can have.
It’s also not that Cuban isn’t making money from Cost Plus Drugs, because he is. He could be doing furtherhe told Goode, but as he himself said, “How much money do I need? “I’m not trying to land on Mars.”
The comment, presumably directed at Elon Musk, was just one of several comments Cuban made about the billionaire owner of “existential moment” overall for Musk’s platform.
Because of Bluesky’s troll-blocking capabilities and what Cuban calls more engagement-friendly policies, he says he’s found it much easier to get involved there, whether it’s Kamala Harris, cryptocurrency, or the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, in the which owns a minority stake. “If you want to know what Elon thinks, Twitter is awesome,” Cuban joked, but added that, in comparison, he thinks Bluesky is more of a true “social network.”
Mark Cuban and Lauren Goode in The Big InterviewPhotography: Tristan deBrauwere