Billionaires Don't Create Jobs

Business magnate, NBA owner, angel investor and self-made mogul Mark Cuban answers your questions from Twitter.


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[tyler]

A billionaire with self-awareness is like a politician who isn’t power hungry

It’s rare

[lucasmelo]

Billionaires who defend paying taxes are the smartest one. They really know what people wanna hear. Doesn't mean they do what people want.

[sirpream.clientele]

"Don't watch what they say, watch what they do", for "talk is cheap", and "actions speak louder than words".

[griffin]

How is he looking directly at me and not looking directly at me at the same time

[acarrascoy]

I love the honesty about needing luck... Every time someone tells you "do this and you will succeed" they forget about the survivor bias; there are thousands of people that did the exact same thing and failed for things that they couldn't control.

[johnpejnovich]

The most TRUTHFUL STATEMENT about business. Kudos to you Mark Cuban.

[jkyle]

Mark asking other billionaires to care about the country is so noble and sad.

[shawnnelson]

And yet, when he was asked if he'd pay his fair share in taxes, he said, "I will when they change the tax code. Until then, I'd be foolish to not take advantage of the current tax code as a businessman."

[AILIT]

Cuban has always been one of the most honest people on the other side of money. He keeps it real!

[tonysnow]

In ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, paying taxes was actually something the wealthy elites took pride in. In fact, the wealthy elite class of ancient athens would compete with each other to pay the most taxes because that was the measure of a great patriot and aligned with their philosophy of giving back to the society that gave you that wealth.

Early American business magnates actually grew up on and were inspired by greek philosophy. Many wealthy business owners in the early United States would give much of their wealth to public projects and would invest greatly into their employees.

This all began to change around the early 1900s and started getting exacerbated after the 70s and with the introduction of Reaganomics. In many respects, Reagan was a great president especially when it came to foreign policy. But his economic policies greatly contributed to the sudden and drastic increase in the wealth gap between the middle class and the upper class.

The culture around how the wealthy treated money and viewed taxes also became very oppositional around that time as compared to earlier generations.

Fast forward to today, and only a few wealthy people are left that subscribe to the ancient greek philosophy of philanthropy and charity. While more and more billionaires continue to spend millions backing politicians that seek to increase loopholes and pass tax cuts for them.

I am a small business owner myself and I pay my taxes proudly. I know it keeps our military the strongest in the world, our national parks clean and taken care of, our streets paved and serviceable, our police and firefighters equipped for duty, and much much more. The only thing I wish our congressmen would stop hindering is the department of education.

The founders would be severely disappointed to see how far we've left the quality of public education diminish in this country as the wealthy politicians could care less because more than half of them have their children matriculated in private schools that get funded by private donors.

[Mr_internet_funnyman]

Why is mark Cuban always doing the Kubrick stare

[littlejack]

The entrepreneur part is actually super insightful. Never thought about it that way but it makes perfect sense

[helios]

Honest take - "Should billionaires pay more in taxes?" "Fk yeah we should pay more in taxes!!" 🤣🤣🤣💯💯🙏

[TheTalk]

Mark is awesome. He isn't fake. A billionaire's change. Mark has always been the same.

[tigernotwoods]

That’s why I like Mark Cuban. He was born into a working class family. He actually earned where he’s at unlike most, and he has the awareness and the honesty to admit that it’s luck.

[PeeKaoo]

Mark be looking at the ceiling and at me. At the same time😂

[williewilliams]

Mr. Cuban, thank you. One of the VERY FEW who acknowledge that they didn't get where they are w/o everything their employees did to help them get there. If (when) a wealth tax gets passed, you're one of the few that believes in doing what's right & PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE!

[johnmadison]

I've always liked Mark Cuban. Never afraid to speak up in what he believes.

[pacific]

That luck thing he mentioned does truly matter. I mean most of us want to be a billionaire, but most of us just won't and thats a bitter fact.

[tabithan]

Respect for Mark Cuban! The luck part has been proven in studies of entrepreneurs. They can rarely repeat successes. Sometimes lightning strikes twice, but it’s rare.