Mark Cuban scaled Cost Plus Drugs from about 100 generics to roughly 4,000 at a flat 15% markup, forcing incumbents to change prices in ways decades of policy never did. He thinks AI could transform healthcare, but it won't fix opaque prices and broken incentives on its own. Mark sits down with a16z's Julie Yoo and Erik Torenberg to discuss what he's learned building Cost Plus Drugs, why trust is its core product, and how greater transparency could put pressure on healthcare costs. They also explore why drugs designed for your DNA could cost close to nothing, the football field-sized drug plant his team shrank into tractor trailer-sized pods, his plan to make generics in Dallas for less than he pays manufacturers in India, and why every company will either be great at AI or go out of business. 0:50 Cost Plus beat decades of policy 3:15 111 generics to 4,000 drugs 5:00 A drug plant shrunk to 5K sq ft 5:55 $20M drug factories in a trailer 8:10 Hospital deals with zero denials 9:50 Why health plans are rigged 14:05 1,335 pages no human can check 18:35 "Where are they f**king me over?" 22:45 Making drugs cheaper than India 26:50 Why you still need entry-level hires 31:45 Nonprofit hospitals must offer aid 35:55 DNA-matched drugs for near $0 39:30 Why AI will mean more doctors 48:00 Mark's plan: "bye bye insurers" 52:25 Why AI labs' ads are useless 56:35 Get good at AI or go out of business YouTube: youtu.be/5UWDUD6qaM4 @mcuban @julesyoo @eriktorenberg

Mark Cuban's advice for young people boils down to "there's gonna be two types of companies: those who are great at AI and those who have gone out of business." "And then there's two types of people in how they use AI: those who use AI to learn anything, and those who use AI so they don't have to learn anything." "And if you're one of those people who uses AI so that you can learn anything, and you realize what type of companies and problems aren't being solved by AI, don't be shy to just talk to your AI." "And I say this not just to kids, but to 50 60, 70-year-old entrepreneurs. The biggest challenge right now with entrepreneurs using AI is the comfort level of talking to your AI... there's still a lot of hesitancy." "Just like back in the day, those first spreadsheets, people still had their 10-key adding machine, and they would check it to make sure the spreadsheets were right." "So when you ask me, is there one thing I truly believe, it's everything. Everything will change. This is the greatest transitional technology we have ever seen, and I've been around for all of them, right? This blows them all away." @mcuban @julesyoo @eriktorenberg

Mark Cuban says the lack of AI adoption in organizations means the "trillionaire in the basement" entrepreneur is coming: "You have to be able to understand as a CEO and in the C-suite how all those things impact your company. Once you get a good grasp on that... you can just find new ways for things to happen that benefit your customers or create new opportunities." "And that's the brilliance of AI, right? AI is not smart. It's book smart maybe, but it's not street smart. It's not entrepreneur smart. You've got to have somebody there who guides it and helps it." "But until you have a C-suite that understands how it works, it's gonna be very difficult for that organization." "I literally sat with the head of a consumer food company... I'm like, 'Okay, well, let's do this. Let's take your number one product, your cookie, right? And I'm gonna ask ChatGPT to create a competitor...' And in about three minutes he was like, 'Oh, s**t.'" "There's no better time to be an entrepreneur than right now. There will be the trillionaire in the basement." @mcuban @eriktorenberg @julesyoo