I'm Eric Reece. This is out of the crisis. There's nothing good about the situation. But I have been witness to extraordinary acts of generosity, of courage, of ordinary people stepping up and leading even in situations in places where they couldn't have possibly imagined them doing that, even just a few weeks ago on, I've always heard stories about how people did that in past crises. My grand parents used to tell me stories about that, and I never really imagined it ever happening to me. And yet I am witnessing it all around us, and I do think that is a path forward for us as a society for us to realize we have these inner strengths and capabilities to step up and lead. Mark Cuban is a legend, and you've probably seen him on TV or you know, him as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks or just a larger than life personality in our society. Mark and I have been on many related email threads in this cove it crisis, trying to work on relief efforts,

and he called me the other day and just asked me for a comprehensive briefing on everything related to the procurement of personal protective equipment for our medical first responders. Mark has a unique ability to use his name and his platform to open doors, and he course could do that for himself. But he's been very generous in this crisis, doing it for others. Here is my conversation with Mark Cuban. I can't imagine there's anyone out there who doesn't know you and the many things that you're involved in. But just for those, maybe who are new, I wanna introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about many, many different business ventures you're involved in.

Yeah, I guess. A Mark Cuban. I owned the Dallas Mavericks. I'm on Shark Tank. I've invested in hundreds of companies. I made my money initially when I was in my twenties, I got fired from a software sales job, started a systems integrator called Micro Solutions. We were one of the very first low local area network and wide area network integrators, taught myself to code over seven years and wrote all kinds of applications. We wrote the very first automated purchase order interface for Wal Mart for sales. We wrote one of the very first video interfaces so that Zales could take videos and pictures of, um, their inventory instead of having to keep one in a safe and just all kinds of crazy applications and sold that tow company called CompuServe. If you remember back then, Oh yeah,

you know and then took a couple years off. And then in the mid nineties, late 94 early 95 my buddy and I were trying to figure out the best way to listen to Indiana basketball, and we had to have a a speakerphone where we had one set up in Bloomington, Indiana, one in Dallas, Texas, and someone would put a radio next to it in Bloomington. And we're like, This Internet thing has gotta have a better way. And so we started what turned out to be one of the first, if not the first, audio streaming companies called Audio Net. And obviously we evolved to video a swell and took that public and then sold it to Yahoo almost 20 years ago today and then after that. But the Mavs and just been having fun investing and starting a running small companies ever since.

That's awesome. Uh, obviously not gonna have time for any basketball questions But just how how is the whole organization are just thinking about what it must be like to run an organization that is completely shuttered that can't do its business at all? There's no I've been like for everybody.

Yeah, it's no fun, obviously. I mean, from from the mass perspective, the players are going nuts and you try to keep in touch with them all the time. Um, you know, particularly with young employees, you gotta really be vigilant because their natural instinct is to think they're invincible and we'll go outside and do anything and hang out. And, you know, and you know, they realized we've had some some young folks guys in their twenties and a woman in her twenties actually gets sick as well, and some advanced systems will be okay. But it wasn't any fun. And But that kind of,

you know, sent the message back to them that, you know, they really have to take this seriously. So that's been the hardest part. Um, in terms of the mass, you know, and ob suit, a lot of it's out of our control. Most, most small businesses, you know, you try, you can try different things and take advantage of different opportunities. You create for yourself even weird times like this. But with the MBA teams, we've gotta wait. Didn't take direction from the n B A. So that's a big difference.

Have you? Have you guys thought about how they can use their celebrity and kind of platforms to be advocates for social distancing

for something that's strange? You know, they're playing video games with kids. They're you know, they're out there sending a message to stay at home. You know, giving you know, examples of how you can stay active in your backyard or indoors and just tryingto stay engaged. You know, we live in a social media universe now, and all of them have, particularly in the MBA, have very large platforms, and they want to keep those active. And they're recognized that, you know, with kids not at school.

Kids are more active on those platforms and you know, their potential fans that turned into followers that that turned into bigger fans and, you know that leads it to better business. So they recognize that this as bad as this is, it's an opportunity to connect more with fans and really you know, advanced that connection with them.

So great. And, you know, I just really appreciate taking time to talk about this with so much going on. You know, first of all, just on the pandemic, um, you know, it's affecting all of us. We're all dealing with it as best we can. How are you holding up? What's what's your pandemic set up?

I mean, I work from home all the time anyway, so it's not a big change, you know? You know, you know me from the past. I'm not a big email. I mean, I'm not a big meetings or phone call. Guys, um, I do 90% of my stuff be email, and so this is kind of par for the course for me. And it's more of an adjustment for others that I work with are work around who always wanted to do phone calls or meetings. But they were always usedto working with me this way. So my life hasn't changed all that much. Other than my kids being home and a lot more forced family fun for the Cuban family.

How they How are they holding up with school closed and

everything? Yeah, I mean, the schools actually keeping them busy in the mornings. My 16 year old daughter still doesn't talk to me by 13. Daughter talks to be sometimes so it's business as usual here.

Yeah, that's Ah, that's really great Way also were accustomed to working in schooling from home, and so it hasn't been such a big disruption, but I know you know we'll put a link in the in the show description, but we've been working on this thing called school closures dot org's for our families. For him, this much more of a crisis and trying to help them get the resource is. And I'm astonished how much people use schools for for school lunches and food, security and so many surfaces. And so, getting the word out to people who don't have as much

as you indicated you were getting killed meals and just trying to help where we can

Yeah, that's ah, that is really awesome. Uh, have you any conflict in the family about just like, what level of quarantine you got to do for, like, packages coming in or groceries or Yeah,

I mean, at the beginning, particularly, you know, my friends are doing this? My friends are doing that. No, you're not doing it. No, but I know, you know, in fighting that battle, um, no, you can't even take your car. She just learned to drive and you know, is But she's smart.

I mean, she's come around, she recognizes the wrists. And, um, you know, she understands what's going on. So, yeah, it hasn't been a problem the last 10 days or so, but early on, it was on. And, you know, I think they're they're smart enough to recognize this is something that's unique because they see the fairer in their parents faces. They hear the fair,

you know, in their friend's parents voices. And so, you know, it's just it just is what it is. And the good news is, you know, their social media babies, right? That's how they grew up. And so whether it's Snapchat, whether it's instagram, whether now it's tick talk, that they've got things to occupy them. I couldn't even imagine, you know,

when I was growing up, if this would have happened, you know, no sports on TV, I don't know what

inconceivable right? That's really it's such a huge difference. Even you know, people obviously compared to the 1918 pandemic a lot, and I think how much social activity but also how much business activity is able to keep going because we all can do so much from home and somebody

discovering more they could do a effort. You know, we tried to explain to them that throughout history that there's always been circumstances where you wake up one morning and the world is different. You know, wars have been fought. My grand parents were forced from Russia. You know, it's either leave or die. You know, my my dad and my uncles fought in the world wars. And so it's just, you know, there's always circumstances in people's lives. I mean, you hope you don't have to deal with it, but I mean, if you live in Syria,

you know there's no no, I know, you know. And so we have first world problems, and this is still difficult for us. But it's still a first world problem compared to what people in undeveloped nations are facing.

Amen

to that. I remember that very message. We tried toe, you know, to ride home with them that, and amplify as much as we can. That is difficulties. This is, you know, other countries. People are resilient. And in other countries, they've gone through worse. In this country, we've gone through worse.

I took a lot of comfort in that. I remember as a kid, my parents were victims of the Holocaust and fought in the wars. And they would tell this the craziest stories about what it was like And, you know, as a kid growing up in America, middle class family, you know, it just seems so remote, like, Oh, come on. The soul of fashion, that kind of stuff could never happen here And now I wish I had listened a little better.

Yeah, we reviewed the story of the Diary of Anne Frank, you know, and in what she went through, um, offseason and well, but still, you know, it was a book they had read, and it it resonated with them

and has a whole different meaning. Now, where you're actually living through this? Yep. One of the themes that has really struck me the last couple weeks, you know, working with you and so many others is this unbelievable surge of business leaders, civic leaders of all stripes kind of stepping up and trying to lead us out of this crisis. So talk a little bit about what you've seen and kind of why you felt called toe take on a leadership

role. I mean, well, I'm very fortunate, You know, I'm not facing the financial struggles that I once did. And so I'm in a position where I can try to help others, and it didn't start with this, But when this happened, you know, I have have a platform. I have resource. Is people available to me to help me? And it was just the right thing to do to try to help where I could and that started with continuing to play pay employees than the companies that control. Um, because I understood that the grief and the uncertainty and the fear that they would go through if they weren't getting a paycheck, encouraging others to do the same,

trying to use the Mavericks as a platform. Teoh, you know, reach out through our foundation and through the Mavs directly to get, um, food or our daycare toe first responders. And, you know, it's just the type of things that make common sense if you have, the resource is to do them. And it is not surprising to me at all that whether it's yourself or others, Marc Benioff So many other people have recognized that. OK, I've got the resource is to help solve problems and there are people out there that they're putting. They're putting their lives on the line to save people. Why won't I help them?

You know something that they're the real heroes there? Yeah, they they are the real heroes. And you know, we've done it with the military will do it with first line responders and health care and God forbid it happens again. But we'll do it again if we have to.

You know, I really remember right. The first day the MBA decided to shut down. You were, I think, the first owner to call for providing funding not just to the direct employees but to everyone in the network of vendors and people who are around the team who had ah had economic need and it was really interesting. One thing I've really believed is that a crisis kind of reveals your true colors. You learn a lot about companies and organisations by how they respond in the moment. And look, I mean, I'm a warriors fan, and their first day reaction to that was not very strong. And it kind of after you said that that was what you were going to do than other owners kind of stepped up and said, Yeah, we're gonna do that, too. I thought that was really interesting moment on and showing how an individual active leadership could then, you know, influence the whole industry.

Yeah. I mean, it just happened there. It was a Mavs game. When everything shut down, it was just happenstance. But it was something I thought about previously. You know, we've had conversations not knowing if that game was going to be played that night, not knowing what would happen with the rest of the season. And it was just something that that was a concern to me. And it just came to mind when I was doing the interview on ESPN, and unfortunately, you know, it did lead to others doing it, and again, I still think most would have done it anyways if they could afford it. But it was just nice to see people you know, recognize that there's something they should consider.

One of the key values here is to put people first and that, you know, businesses, organizations we exist to serve human beings. And so when people are need that, that's got to come first as a business priority and that just seem like a moment to kind of communicate that value through action rather than words. What else have you seen or done to try to help your organizations understand? They need to put people first.

I mean, that's just a driving principle of who we are. I mean, look, I've made lots of mistakes, and I'm not here to tell you that these all came organically to me. We've had problems at the Mavs that I had to respond to, and I had to learn from, um and when you when you have things that go really wrong, you have to learn a lot and you have to recognize where things did go wrong. And, you know, I would just go about. I recognize that you know, the leadership that reports to me is just a Zim. Porton is what I do. And I gave up people a lot more autonomy.

You know authority with a responsibility without authority doesn't get anybody very far. And I think one of the things that I've recognized is that I've gotta pull back and let people have that authority so they could make decisions and just be more available to them. And I think that's really a big part off how my leadership has evolved because I was just having fun for a long time, and it kind of bit me because I trusted people without communicating with them. Now I trust them. I give them authority. But I communicate a whole lot more actually, let them communicate with me a whole lot more so that we're all on the same page. And when you do that, that kind of sets an example. And the people that report to me do the same thing to people that reports of them do the same thing, even though you know we're not a very, um, hierarchal higher Arkle organization. The levels that we do have we really try toe, make it so that when you have responsibility, you have authority. And a big part of that is communicating with your people.

Yeah, one of my pet peeves is an orc chart that puts the leader at the top of the chart. It's like no says completely backwards, like the leaders exists important people that do the actual work where they're like the roots and the end of the muck, you know? Yeah, And

every company has different parts. Aziz, its own life cycle. Right? And you have to recognize and be self aware where you are in the life cycle of the company. When you guys were starting up when I was starting up, it was, you know, go, go, go, go, go. And you know what? Am I going to get my next customer? How am I going to pay my bills? Will I be in business another month and you deal with things a lot differently?

Then, as you grow and become more established, you have to recognize that it the business kind of has is an organism of its own and kind of takes a life and culture of its own. And you have to work on getting that culture to the point where it really is bottom up, where the people who are touching the customers the most, um, are the ones that recognize that they have the most important job because if they don't do their job well, we're not gonna have customers. And things aren't gonna work

totally so beyond, like basketball and your platform and kind of advocating for what is right. Can you share some stories about people that you've seen step up that have impressed you?

You know, I had another company go knock over their monkey, Matt. That's a shark tank company that made the decision to close down. And I thought that was tough, but it was also brilliant because they had money in the bank. They didn't let it just go and, you know, get a ticket to the very end and then hope they could make it work. They were like, we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. They had just been abused by the tariffs, and that was an issue. Their customer base, you know, wasn't as directors. It was,

wasn't it was started to not be is directors that had been and they recognized that Hey, this is a problem. And well, we're gonna return money to our shareholders. But it also allowed them to put money in their pocket and their employees pocket, you know, other than just writing it out to the end. I was impressed. There. Um, I've seen dude wipes. Right? Is a company that really amped up. There are a few companies that are doing better because of what's going on, and they recognize that there are an alternative to toilet paper. There,

there, sanitizing. Um, I don't even know what you call it. Advertising wife's right. And so, you know, they have witnesses. I'm sorry

is this is booming. The business

is crushing it. Yeah. I mean, and I've got a few shark tank companies that are crushing it. And, you know, they had the moral dilemma of Okay, I feel bad about this. And I don't feel bad. I mean, this is people like your product, and they said, Well, what should we do? Should we amp up advertising? I'm like, Yes.

I mean, cost per clicks of people out there don't realize the cost per click for advertising is going down. The customer acquisition costs are going down, you know. And if you play this right and you connect more closely to your customers, the lifetime value may go up and for dude wipes. It was an opportunity to to connect more and reach out and get more customers, and they took advantage of it. And they asked me, Well, you know, what else can we do? And I said, Hire people. You know, there's gonna be a lot of people who need jobs paying 15 bucks an hour.

At least they got to be able to live off of it and hire them to do whatever you can find them to do. And I think that's just one of the things where every company, when all of a sudden your business, accelerates there's always something that you confined smart. There's always something you need done. And now you can find a lot of smart people to do it because so many people have lost their jobs, so those those are a few examples. But I think the one thing to really point out is whether you're struggling or doing well. You have to be aware of what's happening in the marketing of your products. Things are changing in digital marketing, changing dramatically. The big advertisers are pulling way back, and if you can reduce your costs for customer acquisition, if you can connect in a way that you expand your email database, adds more customers and allows you to connect in new ways, that's that's setting a platform for the future for you.

And so even in these dark days, you have to be opportunistic and and that also includes really learning everything you can about what's going on in your industry. You can't fall back. You really have to lean in and say, Okay, are there opportunities right now for me to take advantage of And what do I need to do to do so?

One of the things Sam Altman said that struck me was that during a boom, the only thing that gets cheaper is cost of capital. Everything else gets more expensive and so conversely, crisis. The really key inputs that allow companies to grow get cheaper human talent, marketing, engineering, R and D. Everything gets less expensive. So what have you been doing? Your courage companies not to get what grade now to invest, to put people to work, to make sure that we're all doing our part. You know that this doesn't turn into an economic depression.

The first thing is to take advantage of the play real protection program. Now you can't apply until Friday, and I'm kind of disappointed that, but that's neither here or there. But, you know, for those who aren't aware, it's the government stimulus program that effectively says for your employees that make under $100,000 a year, the government will cover your payroll expenses and rant and utilities and some ancillary expenses for the next 2.5 3 months. But but there's also a kick. If you retain all your employees, you don't have to take. You don't have to pay it back. So I've been pushing all of my shark tank companies. All of my smaller companies, you know, you have to have fewer than 500 employees. So all the companies that qualify to go out and apply for this because it allows them to retain their employees, allows them to continue to push their business forward and stay in business and potentially grow. And that's just something every small business with under 500 employees needs to take advantage off.

A lot of folks I've been talking to about this, they're not accustomed to asking the government for help and it feels a little weird. Startups don't always interact with the government, have you? If you help people kind of understand why it's important for them

do this. Yeah. I mean, of course. I mean, my first inclination. I you know, I run Libertarian just is who I am. And my first inclination was, you know, I don't I don't think, think I want to do this But this is not a standard operating procedure. This is not a typical environment. This this is a black swan event and you have to deal with what's in front of you. And the government knows that stimulus is important for the economy. Like you said, we don't want Oh,

you know, at any more severe recession than we we were already in and hopefully to avoid a depression. And so we really need to take the steps to keep our employees keep them employed and keep them working. And if there's a stimulus program that allows us to do this, you got to do

it. I won't think I was really conscious of this pre crisis, but it really struck me in the early days because I was so focused on taking care of our employees are vendors or contractors. Are, you know, are broader community? Was that one of the ways you provide support to people is to offer them stable employment? Yes. Oh, yes, Oh, yeah, like that's actually like keeping the company in business, having it have a sustainable business model, having it pulling the funds that it needs to keep going. That's actually not a greedy thing to do. It's a way to be service of the off service, the people that are in

your ecosystem without question. Look at someone who's been fired and had their back against the wall and sleeping on the floor and not being sure where my next dollar was coming from to pay for food. You know, I can connect with people who are in that circumstance or would be in that circumstance. If you had to learn people off and so anything you can do to keep them hired you, you just improve their sanity. You improve their mental health, you improve the lives of their families. So you're just certainly not being selfish and its net Look, I'm a capitalist. It's never selfish to keep your company in business It's never selfish, the higher. It's never selfish to try to do the right thing for your employees, your customers in your stakeholders, you know we're become selfish is when you just try to just squeeze out one extra dollar at the expense of an employee at the expense of a stakeholder to try to look geared to shareholders because you don't think they trust you are believing you enough to increase your price earnings ratio. If you're a public shack, you know that that's where things go wrong,

you know, and and the way you treat people in a crisis when you could take advantage of them people remember that forever.

Yep, right now, you know, if the way you treat your employees today while all this is going on will define you as a brand for years, if not decades, we'll be on Shark Tank. As an example, we're seeing more and more companies over the last three years that have a social component to them by a pair of socks, will give away a pair of socks, you know by thes sandals and will contribute money to building schools in Afghanistan for girls who otherwise couldn't go to school, you know by their son will provide blankets. So consumers particularly Gen Z and Millennials so they're used to are becoming more used to looking for a social component put with from the companies that they do business with. And if you don't have it before this, you were you at a disadvantage. Now going forward, those same people, they're gonna look to see how you treated your employees.

They're gonna look to see how you treated your customers. They're gonna look to see what impact you had in your community because when they go on instagram, we're on tick talk or on Snapchat or even Facebook. If they have it and they're not gonna wear your T shirt, they're not going to be proud of showing your products online. They're not going to be an influence of for you organically and authentically because they don't want to be associated with your product. And they're gonna tell their friends the exact same thing we're already seeing post that this company just send an email to lay off their employees. I'm not doing business with them again. That company get a group voicemail to everybody in order to furlough employees. That's gonna have ramifications for years. And so what you do today will help define your brand or hurt your brand for a long, long time.

One of the famous things that Toyota would do and you know it has been around since the Great Depression and before was that, you know, during economic downturns, they would keep people employed in the factory even if they had no orders and just come up with something else for them to do it, make them make improvements in the factory, improve capacity so that when the orders eventually they're gonna resume, they're poised to take advantage of the growth. So anyone in your portfolio or anyone that you've been talking to kind of have an example of something like that or impressed

you with something? Yeah. I mean, a lot of our companies, a lot of companies are keeping people employed. There's no question. But, you know, in all small businesses, you're so go, go, go, go, go All the time. You always find yourself thinking, you know what? If I only had a few minutes,

if I only had a day or two, I really would love to do a BNC. Yeah, I like to redo my marketing materials. I like to rewrite this this manual. I like to re evaluate this code and look for bugs and clean it up. I like to, you know, talk to this customer. Like to redo my video content or add to create new content or write scripts for this content. All these things that you always wanted to do If you only had time now you probably have the time. And that was the time to do those things so that you come on the other side after the reset in America. Two point. Oh, and you're stronger.

Let me ask you a little bit about the covert relief efforts that you've been involved in.

Most of the philanthropic stuff has been geared towards trying to help first responders getting them fed, taking care of their day care. Needs getting kids, getting food to kids at school, getting money to food banks, just trying to get where there's immediate need as much as we possibly can. I haven't been one to try to say OK, I'm donating X amount of dollars toe tryingto find a cure or vaccine for Cove in 19 because that's just longer term. I've really tried to focus on ways that we can help people that are facing immediate needs, whether it's feeding them, clothing, them, sheltering them, providing day care, whatever it may be. And then, obviously,

there's a business person that just looked at what's happening with peeping and a particularly the mass. Obviously, that was from an efficient market to an inefficient market overnight, and it upset me. I mean, I thought that there were companies out there that were manufacturers, particularly domestic manufacturers, that were withholding data and keeping a market oh, pay. And that was contributed to it becoming a black market as opposed to even a remotely efficient market. If not, you know, a truly efficient market. And so that's where you know, I got involved with you guys and Alex and a bunch of other folks for Project in 95 dot com, which effectively looks to connect buyers and sellers and make sure that um,

product that was going from Point A to point B was actually authentic and could do the job. And, you know, the information Nava covered the the opportunities they've been ableto find, but also the junk in the garbage in the scams. They've been ableto protect people. That was incredible.

Sickening. We'll put a link in the description two pp Coalition for those that want to kind of get the latest information and want to get involved there. Why that issue in particular? I mean, for me, it makes my blood boil

because it's up in I shouldn't have to have. It's something that should have happened, Brian. And try and find a step slower. Ivan Step slept in like, two days.

I don't know. I listen. This is one of the most outrageous things happening in the crisis

right now. I think it was crazy. I mean, there there's a product and I'll use three and as an example, and I don't think they're doing anything illegal. But I do think that they don't have a great corporate conscience. There's a product manager at 3 a.m. that knows the N 95 mask business inside and out domestically and globally. They know who all the manufacturers are. They know who what their capacity is. Even with all the additional capacity, they know historically who the buyers are there. You know the trends they've been in business in doing this long enough. They were there through stars. They were there through other flu epidemics, not as that is this, but they saw Trans. Any had an understanding?

They're also had, you know, allocation programs that allow them to deal with hot spots. Yeah, having all that data, they shared none. And because they shared no information, that market wound from inefficient to their distributors telling people placing orders. As of this morning, when I talked to some order place or some hospitals

at the hospital,

they're telling them you you can place an order. You can not careful it. We don't know when we're have any product to ship you, and we'll just ship it if and when we get it. And when you respond to your customers like that, it freaks them out. So as a result, they're going out there trying to buy reassume. That's just where the entire market is, and that's what it's become when the leader does that. So they're out there buying whatever they can and mass from whoever they can at whatever price they can source of that, and know they doing that. They're hoarding it. Whatever they get extra there are sharing it. They're keeping it to themselves because off all the uncertainty we don't they don't know what their apex is going to be. In some cases, they don't know when it's going to be.

In some cases, they don't know when it's going to strike them because they're in an area that hasn't been hit hard yet. And and because of that, the market turns goes from an efficient market toe, a gray market to a black market, and that may not have been able to be completely avoided. But it certainly could have been, um, dealt with him in a way that made it a lot less dramatic and a lot less intense. And if three and three time could have done that just by releasing information, if they would have just had their head of supply chain, they're had their product manager for the N 95. Just go out there and talk to everybody to share data with other manufacturers to talk to other manufacturers and say, Why don't we organize together and release information about what our daily production here's what our daily deliveries deliveries are what our order rates are. So we reflect the man and work with the hospitals that our customers and ask them what their daily burn rate is. So you know, other hospitals know how many are being used so we can learn from other hospitals who are being hurt first, all these types of things that they had information that would be supportive and helpful and then to share any of it. And to me, that's just the wrong way to approach things.

Yeah, I mean, I have been talking. I've been on the phone nonstop last 10 days with people all over this ecosystem industry and all these grassroots groups and one of the themes that has come up over over again. It's lack of coordination, lack of cooperation, lack of data. We're all bidding against each other on the same black market, bidding up the price, and there needs to be a coordinated national response. We gotta work together. We gotta have open data, and this is, ah, crisis. That's about to get much, much worse.

I mean, all of us are getting things awful. Messages on social media by email, who doesn't have a family member, a friend who works at a hospital in the health care system in somewhere. I mean, we've got everyone's got these messages

and that's exactly right in. And it's reflective of, you know, from our government, right? I'm not trying to pick on anybody that sets. It shows you that you can't have everybody in charge. When you have everybody in charge of trying to solve the problem, nobody's in charge and everybody steps on each other. And now there's also seeing articles that US aid, you know, which had a stockpile actually ship a lot of this PP overseas. This week you can go. And if you had one person in charge, you could manage everybody that's working with them. Then you could start to take inventory of everything as opposed to everybody just scrambling, trying to solve the problem, not talking to anybody else.

So one thing I want to get your perspective on is a number of the people I've been talking to who are working relief efforts, and some people have been working 24 hours a day, you know, for weeks now they have these moments where they're like, Why me? Why am I in charge of this? This just doesn't make sense. No. You have the conversation that days. Like what? Do you What I know about this. Why are we called

Teoh? Yeah. Why don't we find ourselves at any value to this problem when there's no reason we should be adding value at all or even involved?

Yeah, and And I don't know. If you go on social media, there's people saying, you know, stay in your lane. What are you doing? Like, you know, this is the this to the experts. Leave it to the government. And I know people like I was just counseling someone last night who wants to start one of these projects. And they were afraid, you know, Wait a minute. He had it, actually had it done and were not able to ship it.

You know, they couldn't bring themselves to publish it, cause they're like, I'm gonna get crucified on social media. People yell at me, I might make a mistake. And who am I? Just say what needs to be done. And it was late at night. I said, Listen, I gotta have a heart to heart right now. First of all, we're talking about a guy. So what am I gonna tell you, Delay?

No, of course not. But also, like, you have to do this. You're called to do what you have. You don't. The cavalry is not coming.

And the only cab got out there and tell me what you think. Like a lot of times, people have the best intentions and they have an idea where they want to start a foundation or they want to do philanthropy. But what they don't do is check to see who else is doing the exact same thing, actually, right. And so I'm a big believer in this is generically not. It's not specific to all this that we have too many charities, that there should be a great charity consolidation because there's so much duplication of effort, So justification of fund raising, so much duplication off overhead that the effectiveness of all the above is diminished because these charities air competing with each other.

I've talked to so many people last couple weeks who want to be in charge, you know, and that that ego is getting in the way of doing the work. So, yeah, we have a lot of redundancy and lack of cooperation. So it's it's how do you find that balance between? You have your own unique, distinct perspective, but then the need for us to work together and not make duplicative efforts

It's almost like starting a company or creating a product, right? I really have to do your homework to do it. Right now. You may have a vision that allows you to do it better, but you know, we talk all the time. Is it a product or feature? And you have to really know the difference because somebody else's product that the delta the difference between your product and there's maybe just a feature they can add in 10 minutes. So even if you have a unique element to your idea for solving the problem, you also have to ask yourself, Can you take this to somebody already in the world already doing this and make their lives and make their product or make their service better? And, you know, we're starting to see some of that now. Is people realizing their duplicating efforts? But I think you know, I think it's incumbent about upon anybody in any company you start, whether it's the charity nonprofit or for profit Can you work with somebody already in place to get this done? Because didn't patient of efforts, it's counterproductive.

Please cooperate. Please share data. I mean, yes, the days of delay that this kind of pissing contest of causes and people are dying every day now. So there's there's not really the time and energy for for duplicative stuff that, you know. Hey, maybe that should be true all the time, to your point, but especially in a crisis, right?

Especially now, especially now.

Can you talk a little bit about the kinds of questions you're getting from your portfolio companies and from the companies and nonprofits that you're affiliated with, like we'll have some of the questions you're getting as they're grappling with this crisis?

I mean, the first years, have you seen anything like this before? No. The second is, um what should I do about production? You know, like there's I have one company rise nation, which is an exercise, a boutique exercise company. And there were in the middle of building another location and on one, and I want them to continue to build it, Um, but because I want people to have jobs and continue working on us paying them. And on the other hand, they're gonna finish it so quickly now, because those folks have nothing else to do,

that it's not gonna open for months because they're not going to anybody who can go to it. And that creates its own set of challenges. And so, trying to deal with what's truly critical path in prioritizing in that particular case and really across the board has probably been the biggest question. What do I prioritise and how? And that's where I've had people put together critical pass off. Okay, what do you need to do and who always impacted along each step of the way and then trying to maximize the impact that you can have for the long term? And then the second thing that I tried to convey is don't you know it's painful for today, but there's gonna be great companies that come out of this, you know, we'll look back in 5 10 years, and there will be 5 10 2025 however many companies that were born in this mess that we consider to be great companies. So if you put your long term vision had on you know, where can you see yourself and what's your vision for the other side? You know,

this isn't business as usual. So do you have this conversation I had yesterday? Do you have a vision for the other side That maybe is different than what you're doing today? But maybe is something that everybody can get behind because you knows where those visions are going to come from, right? Maybe it's you. Maybe it's made. Maybe that's this entrepreneur. Maybe it's any of the 100 entrepreneurs that may work with, but it's going to come from somebody. So, you know, press yourself. You visualize what you think it will look like when we come out of this. And can you do something to change the game? That will make it better.

So when people call you and ask about what you've seen before, I expect what they're expecting to say is, Well, you've lived through. I mean, you've been through some shit, man. Forgive my language. You've been through the dot com crash and you've been through the great recession. Um, tell me coming somewhat. What you think are lessons that you learn from those experiences that

a relative not too much supposed experiences. I'll give you an example. And the one that I've been using with everybody. So my first company, Micro Solutions, the systems integrator, were about two years old. We had three employees and we were doing things. We thought the exact right way and we would have our accounts payable list and I would review that. And then somebody else would cut the checks and then I would sign the checks. Then I would have somebody put the checks in the envelopes and mail them to our vendors. No big deal. Weren't for the first year, almost two years. One day I get a call from the bank and its got with a Texas draw. Son, you've had somebody come through the drive through and they write it out.

The pennies and road over there put their name when they wrote it over on my tell me you didn't cash it. Well, of course I cast you. Why? We're not. And so it turns out Of the $84,000 we had in the bank, 82,000 was for payables to our vendors. She took it all gone. And so my first response obviously was worth the fuck No, My second response was okay. I got to get to work. And my partner, Martin and I did just that. We got on the farm with our vendors. We explain what was going on. They knew we were growing.

I mean, we weren't insanely profitable, but we were sustaining ourselves and growing some and and we were decent customer for them, and they understood. But they listened and they talked. And the message I gave to my company's where I've uses example then and now is you've got to communicate with your vendors exactly what's going on. You have to be honest. You have to be transparent, and you have to be proactive. You can't just put your head under the pillow and hope they don't call. And when I went through it, you know, and actually back then we're going. We're in a recession. And things weren't great from for most companies. And so they had heard it from others for but for different reasons,

right? Cos we're going out of business. This is right around the S and l crisis. And so But we talked to them and founder worry through it and they listen because they don't want to see their customers going out of business. And today your vendors are feeling the same fear that you're feeling they're having the same problem with their manufacturers or vendors or whatever the case may be, and they'll talk to you on the listen, and they recognize that these are unique circumstances. And if you can convey to them, here's how you're going to get to the other side. Here's how you come out of this better. If they work with you and give you a payment schedule, whatever it may be, most likely they're going to listen. But as an entrepreneur, you have to do that now. You can't wait till it hits the fan. You have to be proactive, transparent and honest.

One things I've been urging people to do is to send a letter to every one of their vendors and contractors, urging them to put their people first and making sure they understand. Hey, we don't want you to put your people at risk for our sake. We want you obey social distancing to have you done something like that with with your network of suppliers. I

haven't talked to them. I mean, we called, talked him on the phone, haven't sent letters or anything like that.

Little Fashion Digest

isn't a little That is your fashion for me, you know, um, but I have had the conversation with some creative folks where Look, you shouldn't be spending this much time. You need to spend less time working on this. You know, I know your stress because you're concerned about how much business you're going to continue to get. And I know you're trying to kiss my ass because, you know, I'll keep on giving you business. But don't worry, I'll be here. You go take care of your family first. Because your kids are at home. You can't be stressed. You're not gonna do is get a job and you'll kiss my ass. Even better, I get both cheeks way. Get on the other side if we do this. Right.

Um, that's, uh yeah, I you got you got me stumped there for a follow up. That's exactly right. Well, I guess the point is that if you take care of your vendors as human beings first, then when it comes time to re negotiate when it comes time to work out payment plans and figure out how to get through this together. They're gonna

be more willing to work with you. Of course. When did you you know employees? Employers were scared? I had a conversation with something I didn't even know, actually, and they emailed me. And they were like, Well, my employer didn't tell me this this and this NUS And I'm upset about it area. And I'm like, You don't think they're upset? You don't think they're terrified? You don't think they're worried about whether or not they're staying? Those stay in business. You need to talk either to your direct manager if it's smaller, if it's a small enough company,

the owner of the company, and just tell them that you understand, you know, because it's not just an entrepreneur or employer talking to employees. If you're an employee, you should be just is motivated and proactive to say, you know what? What can I do to help you stay in business? What? Where can I help? So we get through this together because that's going to create a much stronger bond between you and your employer that's gonna pay off for a long, long time. You know, one of the Sainz I like to use of the concepts I'd like to convey is that, you know, there's there's two types of employees those who create stress and those who eliminates stress.

Oh, amen to that you always were going to do. You're always gonna be proactive to keep the people that eliminate your stress or at least reduce it. And you're going to just let the people that are the hurricanes. You know, it's always the people who think that the most valuable that always are the least valuable because they create hurricanes of their own making. And then they say they're They're the only ones that can solve them, you know, and the people that just go about their jobs reducing or eliminating your stress. The minute you hear they're even looking for a job or considering leaving, you go nuts and proactively give them a raise. So when these types of circumstances you want to be the employees that proactively goes to your boss, you're the owner and says, How can I help? Here's what I can do You know my my partner, my spouse,

works. That's not a stress for me or neither My partner, my stuff. My spouse doesn't work, and this is gonna be a problem. But here's how I can put myself in a position to help you succeed here. You know, let me do this. This this I'm really good at this. This and this. You tell me what works best for you. And when you have that level of communication, regardless of who starts it, that's how you get to the other side and come out stronger.

And we'll definitely put a link to the Dunning Kruger effect in the cash for her. The thing about people who think they're the most valuable, so most importantly, Mark, where do you think we go from here? Like, how do we get out of the crisis?

I don't know. I don't honestly don't know. But I think what I do know is that there's no other country in the world that's as resilient. That's as entrepreneurial. That's as creative. And I have complete faith in American exceptionalism. If we want to call it that, that we're going to come up with unique ideas and create unique opportunities that will only see because we've gone through this that whatever we get, whatever's on the other side, you know, after this reset, whatever occurs that I have complete faith will figure it out, and we'll come up with new businesses that propel us. I mean, when you go back after over the last 50 years and you look at the greatest technological achievements, most of them came from this country. Now,

a lot of them were immigrants who came here, but they came here because they recognized that we we incubate businesses, right? This is a country that appreciates entrepreneurship, and I think that will continue. Um, maybe we won't have as many immigrants, but those who are here, I think, are going to contribute. Um, and I think entrepreneurs were going to lead the way, and that's how we come out of it. But the specifics, I don't know.

So there must be people listening to us right now that are sitting on the sidelines. I mean, how many of us are kind of in existential dread, despair on social media, feeling like there's nothing we can do if someone's on the sidelines right now, can't figure out how to help or what to do. How can they get in this fight,

take care of your family. Take care of your friends. Take care of your community. You know, start there first and call people on the phone. Call your friends. You know, I had a hang out with my high school buddies, some of whom I hadn't talked to in a couple years. And it was great and just idea started flowing. Right, Because you don't have to go big, you just have to connect. And when you connect with people, you start getting that network effect. And I think that's really what we need people to do. Start working locally in your community,

create a local network effect, and then go from there and see where that takes you. Because everybody can be a leader in their own community. Everybody could be a leader in their household. Everybody can work with people they know. You just have to connect them. You just can't. You can't hibernate and keep to yourself.

Give us one prediction for how the world business world, our society at large, is gonna change as a result of the crisis.

Um, I think people are gonna be a lot more cognizant of cleanliness and you know you will see a lot more jumper folks. And that's a good thing. You know, people. You know, it's not a macro thing, but it's It's an important thing because we're gonna need toe, get past social distancing. We're gonna need to be able to go into communal environments. And, you know, good hygiene for products, for services for ourselves is going to be critical. And it's, it seems, so common sense and so basic. But it's something that I've always taken for granted. Having you

Oh, of course. And listen, epidemiologists have been warning us about this for years that we've got to change our habits and changing and we 100% ignoring them because it's such a downer message. I don't think we're gonna be ignoring them to the same extent anymore, right?

That's exactly right. And that's gonna create opportunities. You're going to see one man sanitizer, one woman sanitizer, companies just, you know, spraying everything. You know, I've had conversations with people, people at arena about creating labelling systems because if you're you know, my mom wants to go to the local park, she's gonna want to know when the last time that park bench was sanitized. And how many people have been there since then? And no one? Okay, here's a little label or whatever it is saying. OK,

it's only been 30 minutes. Feel free, you're safe. Or the count of people who have been here is X. You know, those are the types of things where giving people comfort, that they could venture back out and have some some ability to return to normal. I think those those types of opportunities,

they're going to be big. But it's gonna take some time. This has been out of the crisis. Out of the Crisis is hosted by me. Erik Reece. Produced by LTs. He's been earlier and edited by Breakers. Jacob Tender Use It, Composed and performed by Cody Martin. Out of the crisis was created in partnership with Breaker Best platform to create and listen to podcasts. For more information on ways you can help visit help with Covic dot com. I have several projects on there and feel free to message me that way. I'm also Erik Reece on Twitter, and if anyone has ideas or it's working on a project related to solutions, please do reach out to me.