Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Becky Quick, Mark Cuban

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

We're easing into Christmas weekend with highlights from two of our favorite interviews of 2022. (0:21) Becky Quick discusses: - Helping The Wall Street Journal leap from print to the web - Making the switch from the Journal to CNBC - Her unexpected introduction to Warren Buffett - Behind the scenes at CNBC (19:11) Mark Cuban discusses: - His new health care venture, Cost Plus Drugs - Competing with major healthcare companies - Advice for potential NFL owner Jeff Bezos - The appeal of pickleball! Host: Chris Hill Guests: Becky Quick, Mark Cuban Engineers: Rick Engdahl, Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Chris Hill. On behalf of everyone at The Motley Fool, I hope you're enjoying this Christmas weekend. It is the season of giving, so we are taking a break from the stock market and sharing the gift of two of my favorite interviews from 2022. Later in the show, my conversation with Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, one of the sharks on Shark Tank. On top of that, he's got a new

online pharmacy business called costplusdrugs.com. That's later in the show, but up first, a conversation with Becky Quick, longtime co-host of CNBC's flagship morning show, Squawk Box. Now, if you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that Becky has been a guest on Motley Fool Money for the past 10 years. But this conversation was the first time we were talking in person, face to face. I went to New York City to meet up with her. She had just completed three hours of live TV and met me in a conference room just off the set of Squawk Box. And like the consummate pro she is, Becky got herself a cup of coffee, sat across the table from me, and we just started talking. I asked about her start at the Wall Street Journal, her move to CNBC, and how she

first got to know Warren Buffett. Becky was born in Indiana, the oldest of four kids. Her dad was a geologist and geophysicist, and his work took the family from Indiana to Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, and eventually New Jersey. She was the editor of her high school newspaper, and her interest in media stayed with her when she went to Rutgers University. At the urging of her mother, she joined the staff of the school newspaper and ended up writing for it all four years of college. Not long after she graduated, she ended up in an entry-level job at the Wall Street Journal, and she credits her boss, Karen Miller Pansero, with encouraging and pushing her in those early days at the Journal. It was then that Becky was given what turned out to be one of her first

big assignments in business journalism. So you're at the Journal in the mid-90s, when the internet basically is born and starts to become an actual thing. Is it safe to assume that in part because of your age at the time, and by that I just mean that you were someone under the age of 30, that people looked at you and said, oh, well, she probably understands this. Because I remember talking with older people at the time, and they really struggled to understand what the internet was and why it was anything other than just a computer toy. I didn't know that much about the internet. In fact, I got my first email address when I went to the journal, not in college. But yeah, being young and being low on the totem pole definitely

helped. In fact, I helped launch WSJ.com because nobody else wanted to do it. It was like they were the junk jobs that the serious journalists there weren't going to tackle. This internet thing is a fad. Give it to her. Right. Give it to these young kids who are coming in here just because we want nothing to do with it. And they were probably right because at the time, what we were doing was kind of monkey work. I came over from the overseas copy desk. So they said, okay, you can be the international news editor for WSJ.com, which sounds great. But literally, we were like monkeys. We would take the stories that the overseas editions were running, and we would recode it. I learned HTML, which is basically the dumbest language of all time. You

You can code. Anybody can learn it in about an hour and a half. You learn HTML and you're basically like recoding the stories that have already been edited and written and are finished products. And we were code monkeys turning it into an HTML story and trying to figure out how to make the hyperlinks work so that when they actually launched it that day with the reporters coming in, I remember telling the managing editor of Wall Street Journal Europe or something at that time, like, don't click on this button because the link doesn't work and you've got a hundred reporters sitting in front of you. Like, don't click on these because we haven't figured out how to make this stuff work. But yeah, it wasn't that I knew anything about the internet,

it was just I was so not senior. What brings you to CNBC? Well, CNBC and the Journal had a partnership. And I'd done a bunch of different jobs. After WSJ.com, I actually was a print reporter covering the internet because of my experience that I got as a monkey coder. And then I covered retail for the Journal, for the print journal. And then we had this partnership with CNBC, and they were just throwing reporters on air because they didn't really know who would be any good at it, who wanted to do it. And they would just say, okay, CNBC called, they want you to go stand in the corner over there by the camera that they hooked up in our office. By the logo, do a live hit. Yeah, just go do a live hit. And we all stunk.

Imagine a bunch of print reporters and you just take and throw them in front of the camera. We all stunk. None of us looked like TV reporters. I mean, at that point, I wore jeans in the office every day. I had never worn liquid eyeliner. I didn't wash my hair every day. You're there with your hair up in a clip and they say, go do it. And it's like, okay, maybe I can find some lipstick and try and do this. But I covered retail at that point and it was the fall. And so retail was a big story for CNBC because you were in the heavy shopping season going through the fall into the winter. They put me on a whole bunch and I guess somebody thought it was a good idea to put me on a little more. And I think it was just because I was in the beat that again was getting so much

play at that point retail so you get hired as a reporter first you know i i wasn't sure that i'd want to go so i i said we can try it out they were going to send me over for six weeks and i i remember asking at the time like don't clean my desk out save my job let's go see if this works because i might really stink at it that it turned into about three months and finally they're like okay you got to make a decision because we can't keep your job open any longer and i ended up staying and that was 2001. I'm sure there are a lot of adjustments going from print to TV. Is there one that stands out above others? I literally had one suit when I started working at CNBC and they did not have a wardrobe department in those days. So it was like, holy cow. I went to Ann Taylor

and bought a bunch of shirts that I could hopefully get away with and a few skirts to match it up with. I didn't make a lot of money at that point. So I was like, oh my gosh, how can I do this on my budget. And I remember in the early days, Judy Chung, Carl Quintanilla's wife, was my producer for a while, was trying to teach me the ropes of television. And I would go and work on my script and I'd call everybody, you know, that was general assignment. So they had assigned me a story in the morning. I'd be working very diligently, typing up my script and calling sources till like five minutes before the hit. And I remember Judy yanking me out of my chair, being like, you have to go into makeup. You cannot just roll out. And I was so worried about

my script and so not worried about that aspect of it. You have to remember it's a visual medium and it's not selling out as much as it's, you don't want to be a distraction. You don't want people to be focusing on you instead of what you're saying and what the story is. And that took a little adjustment and that was different. When do you go from your reporting on CNBC to your anchoring? Oh, that's a good question. I think I did general assignment for a while, then they made me the Wall Street beat reporter. And that was in time for Dick Grosso with the New York Stock Exchange. And I remember I spent one summer kind of hanging out outside the New York Stock Exchange, standing on an Apple box, you know, with a hit every hour about what was

the latest in the New York Stock Exchange with that. And then after that, sometime not too long after that, I'm messing up the years. Um, there was a show called bullseye that launched and that was a primetime show with Dylan Radigan. And, uh, they would put me on the set with Dylan Radigan and that started to be like an every night thing so that we could just go back and forth. He was the anchor, but I was sitting on the set with him through the whole show. And, um, that's when they relaunched squawk box and, or no, then they decided I would be a reporter on the set of squawk Box. That's what it was. And that was just before Squawk Box's 10th anniversary, because I remember celebrating that on the set with Mark Haynes. So I did that for about a year and then they

relaunched Squawk Box. And that's when it was Joe Kernan and Carl Quintanilla and I. We talked about adjustments, print to television. What's the adjustment like to hosting a live television show that starts at six in the morning? I guess the emphasis on six in the morning there, right? Yeah, that was the other thing, because Squawk Bucks had been at 7 o'clock to that point. So I'd been doing the 7 a.m. shift for a while, but switching to 6 a.m. when you have to be up and in makeup and read in is a really different scenario. At that point, we were still in Inglewood Cliff, so I didn't have to get up quite as early as I do now, because now I'm commuting into Times Square in Manhattan every day. And that was still pretty early.

I think I was still getting up at about 4.15 then. And that was a huge adjustment for me, because as a print reporter, I was coming into work. I was supposed to be there by 10, and there were a lot of days I wasn't there on time. And you weren't worried about your wardrobe, and some days you weren't washing your hair. Right. It was a little bit of a mess. I had been a night owl in college where I'd be up all night because you're putting the paper to bed then. It was a huge adjustment, but now I'm a complete morning person. At this point, I don't think well at night. I go to sleep early. My whole body's clock has changed as a result of doing this but yeah like going on and and being a host at that

point was funny too i remember joe kernan and i would would sit and look and laugh because you know instead of just being the kids on the side who are kind of like hey just chiming in from time to time with things now we're supposed to be reading all of these things like the intros and things and there's definitely an anchor voice that you have to use and when you're trying to develop that anchor voice you feel like a complete moron like you just sound like an idiot joe and i would sit and laugh and we would we still do this sometimes like okay really try and sell this one coming up and today on squawk box you cannot oversell it you sound like you're shouting you sound like you're singing and it still sounds better than when you're just reading normally

on things so you like just imagine like pick up a newspaper today and read it out loud you sound like an idiot when you try and sell it so we we definitely would giggle through like okay now you try and sell this one let's see who sounds like a bigger jerk and inevitably the person who went overboard the most would sound the best. So there was that. And then, you know, the good thing is, is we just have fun on set and that makes it a lot easier. Then, you know, I never had any practice reading a teleprompter before they put me on live. Never. The first time I ever read a teleprompter was live on television and I was terrible. And thankfully CNBC was like experimenting at that point and nobody was paying much attention, but I literally tripped over the words to the point

where I went blah and I stuck out my tongue on air and said, start over and made them rewind the prompter. And I did all of that on live television. And so it was good to be in a place where they were definitely, look, I think CNBC emphasized on wanting smart people and wanting people who knew the stories and they didn't care as much about the polish. And I was definitely a beneficiary of not needing to know what the heck I was doing. And you can definitely watch that all play out. And I really give CNBC management, Mark Hoffman credit for that. He wants people who can talk through the stories and get it. And the content is way more important than any of the flash. And I think that's important for our viewers, too, because they can find somebody

who doesn't know the story or who doesn't know what they're talking about a mile away. What they want is intelligent conversation. And CNBC has always been true to that. For anyone who's ever seen the movie Broadcast News, among the great things in that movie, I think for anyone interested in media, that's the first exposure we all got to reading off a teleprompter. The scene where William Hurt is sitting down with Albert Brooks and is basically coaching him through and the whole punch one thought in every story, punch one, that sort of thing. And the whole thing with your eyes shifting. I still remember sitting in the theater and thinking, oh, that's how that works?

Like, oh, they're reading off of that? Oh. And the sit on your coat. Make your sit up and sit on your coat so it doesn't make you look hunched. Coming up after the break, Becky Quick shares how she first met the Oracle of Omaha. Stay right here.

This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. During her career, Becky Quick has interviewed countless CEOs and three U.S. presidents, but she might be best known for her conversations with legendary investor Warren Buffett. How'd you meet Warren Buffett? The first time I actually met him was, let's see, Judy Dobrinsky, who had come from the New York Times, was the managing editor at CNBC, and we were running around.

I think she's the one who sent me, if I'm remembering this correctly. It was the opening of the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. And my producer Lacey and I were going out for that. And they said, oh, on your way back, stop in Omaha for the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. And honestly, I didn't know really what Berkshire Hathaway was that much at that point. I knew of it, but I didn't know really

what I was getting myself in for with a shareholder meeting. So we stopped and I haven't slept because we stayed up all night for the opening of the Wynn. We literally haven't slept. My flight from there, I remember it was a Southwest flight and we didn't get on till the end. So I got the last row where the seat doesn't recline and I fell asleep on the guy next

to me. It was like drooling on his shoulder when we woke up and landed in Omaha. So we were working on no sleep and not nearly enough preparation. And at that point, he would give all the television reporters who showed up five minutes of time on that Saturday to ask whatever questions you could. So I was really excited, like my five minutes with Moore and Buffett, I'm never going to see him again. And went great.

said hello took a picture for my dad and i didn't see him again for several years so it was not a huge surprise but then um at one point um i reached out to him and we were talking and i'd heard he was going to china and i'd just gone to china with boone pickens the year before and you know when he mentioned in the conversation we kind of got around to china i said oh yeah can i come with you he's so nice and was so caught off guard that i don't think he thought of a polite way to say no fast enough. So he said, okay. And then I thought, oh my gosh, what do I talk to Warren Buffett about for 12 hours on this plane ride? Because he was going over with a bunch of guys from the Nebraska Furniture Mart. So it was all of them on the plane. We were hanging out. So wait, it's you,

Warren Buffett and furniture executives. The Nebraska Furniture Mart. Yeah. You better come up with stuff to talk about because then it's going to be 12 hours of furniture. Well, you know, they were actually really great, but Warren reads all of these newspapers. And so he's got a thought on every single story in the news. And the good thing was we were able to just kind of chat through and he makes you so comfortable and he's a normal person and doesn't make you feel stupid. So it was a great conversation.

And that's kind of where everything started. And then we started having him on pretty frequently. And look, he wants to be remembered as a teacher. And I think the reason he comes on CNBC so frequently is that he sees it as the platform that he can reach the most students. When he comes on, the very first show he did, the Ask Warren show, was this idea where after he wrote his annual shareholders letter, he wanted people to be able to get a chance to ask him a question. So we did a three-hour show of Warren Buffett, nothing but, and viewers could

write in their questions. At that point, email was still the primary way that people were reaching out. So a lot of people emailed in and we got a huge turnout for that show. It was something like three or four hundred in the demo was showing up or in the households showing up for that. It was a big deal. And we got a massive amount, thousands and thousands of people who wrote in wanting to get a chance to ask their question. And it kind of evolved from that. I know there's going to come a day when he's no longer around. And I dread that day because for a while now, he's been the unofficial reassurer in chief when it comes to the U.S. economy. And I don't know who's going to be next in that role. Because it's a role that I don't

even know if we had that before Buffett came along. And now that we have it, now that we have this person out there who's just sort of like, okay, whether it's 2008, 2009, and the Great Recession, and he was this calming force. And I really don't know who comes next. You know, I think there are always going to be larger-than-life business leaders who can stand up and try and reassure people and speak just beyond their own company. You think of somebody like Jamie Dimon, who to some extent has delved in on those things. You think of people who are able to look beyond the nitty-gritty of what it means directly for their company and look beyond what it means for this quarter's earnings, what the broader

implications are. And I have to say, I've seen a lot of business leaders who have stepped up recently and who have done a pretty good job of laying out. You go to the business roundtable and every time I'm there, you can talk to a handful of CEOs, many of them from Dow component companies, who will say, here's what's important. Here's what matters for the longer term. It's issues that they are trying to remind Washington about, too, that just as a great A CEO shouldn't be looking just at this quarter's results. A great politician should not be looking just at what this means until the next time I run. You have to have longer-term conversations about policy.

You have to have goals that transcend just your term. And I think there are always going to be people who stand up and do just that. I don't know who that person is going to be. I agree that he has been that person. But I do have confidence that there will be people who continue to stand up and say, this is what is really happening. This is what's right, whether it helps me or doesn't help me. And this is what we need America's politicians to be thinking about, too. Catch Becky Quick on CNBC's Squawk Box every weekday morning at 6 a.m. Eastern.

Coming up after the break, a conversation with Mark Cuban. Don't touch that dial. This is Motley Fool Money. welcome back to motley fool money i'm chris hill this christmas weekend we are revisiting two of my favorite conversations from 2022 in november i got the chance to talk with mark cuban you may know him from the hit reality TV show Shark Tank, or as the longtime owner of the Dallas Mavericks. But I caught up with him to talk about his new online pharmacy business, as well as the ways that incentives are set up in the healthcare industry. Plus, with reports that Jeff Bezos might be interested in buying the Washington Commanders football team, I also asked Mark if

he had any advice for Bezos. We also talked about professional pickleball, but I started the conversation by asking about his new business, Cost Plus Drugs. I want to get into the nuts and bolts of this business, but I have to start at a much higher level, Mark. And I guess my first question for you is, why would you take this on? You can kind of do anything you want in the world of business, and you have decided to attack a garden that is riddled with thorns. There are beautiful flowers in this garden, but there are so many thorns in the prescription drug industry. Why did you decide to take on this challenge? Because I can. Really, though, it's 2022 in the United States of America, and we still have people having to choose between medication,

food, rent, necessities, and that's just wrong. When you look at any industry and you see that it's opaque. You see that it's dominated by a few key players. You see that there's no trust whatsoever. You see that the pricing is variable depending on where you show up and when. That's just an industry that's ripe to be disrupted. And so it really didn't seem like it was a big task, just an expensive task. I mean, it's really straightforward. You know, at CostPlusDrugs.com, we have a very simple mission to be the low cost provider of medications. And we recognize that medications really aren't our product though. What our product is, is trust. Because if you think about the whole healthcare system and your own personal experiences, you trust your doctor,

at least hopefully you do. But anyone or anybody else that you have to write a check to, you don't trust them at all. You don't know what you're going to spend. You don't know if there's going to be surprises. You don't know what you're going to get or not get. And if you think about your experience with prescriptions, you know, you're you're at your doctors and they tell you, OK, you need this medication and you don't talk about cost. You don't talk about much of anything. You know, the only thing the doctor asked you is what pharmacy do you use? And then when you go to the pharmacy, you really don't know what you're going to pay. You know, maybe you've got like a phenomenal insurance program where there's no copays, but, you know, tens of millions of people are either uninsured. underinsured, or have high deductible or high copay, including Medicare.

And so, when you're in that set of circumstances, going to a pharmacy or using mail order for your medications, whatever it may be, is nerve-wracking, and nobody had any control. And so, I saw that, and Dr. Ash, my answer, we saw that as an opportunity to create a change. You talked at the beginning about how this is an expensive challenge, and one of the expenses, I have to believe, is building awareness. Because I was thinking, as you were talking about the last time I needed medication, I was thinking about sort of that point in the process where the doctor says, and what pharmacy do you use?

So, how do you and your team go about building awareness for cost-plus drugs, other than having conversations with people like me. Yeah. Other than that, we really spend zero on marketing. And obviously I have a big platform on social media and can do interviews anywhere and everywhere. And I do. But the reality is, I mean, I'll give you an example. There's a drug called imatinib, which is for leukemia. And some people literally, you know, get that, you know, what's your pharmacy routine, show up at the pharmacist and imatinib for 30 days was several thousand dollars and we sell it now we've lowered our price several times so i think we're in the 41 i forget the exact price but it's like 41 51 dollars and so when you have that dramatic a price

savings for patients everybody who has leukemia that uses this drug you know they're in the same facebook groups they're online talking to each other they're you know they're communicating with their doctors and telling them how much money they save who in turn tells other patients hey have you seen cost plus drugs? You got to check it out. And so word of mouth and being viral is enormous for us because you know, when you got your medication, I take, um, the voxetrin, which is the generic of Synthroid for hypothyroidism. And I'm always telling people, look, you know, when I hear that they've got it, you've got to go to cost plus drugs because it's going to be $5 and 60 cents. If you take the same strength as I do versus the $200 I was paying, you know,

before a year ago. There are others in this space as well. I think about a business like GoodRx. When I think about sort of the alternatives to the traditional pharmacy system, one of the places my brain goes is to, what is the reaction of the CVS and Walgreens of the world? So, since I'm sure you've heard from them, what has been the reaction from the traditional pharmacy system? They think we're just tiny and they ignore us, which is great. That's exactly what we want them to do. There are three big companies that own major insurance companies that own the big retail pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens, etc. They also own these things called pharmacy benefit managers, along with many other things. They're literally top 20 in revenue

size companies. They don't pay a ton of attention to us yet, but it's because they're vertically integrated that we have this opportunity because that enables them to distort prices, to play left pocket, right pocket. If I don't make it at the pharmacy, I'll make it at the PBM. If I don't make it at the PBM, I'll make it through our insurance company. And, you know, to quote Jeff Bezos, their margin is our opportunity. And so, you know, I don't think they're paying attention to us yet. They know we exist. You know, we've heard them say things to politicians and heard him say things to others, but it's going to be very, very difficult as these huge public companies to adapt as quickly as we can. You just touched on something that

I was trying to get at in my opening preamble when I talked about, this is a beautiful garden with a lot of thorns in it. If you had come out in January and announced that you were starting a business and it was a national chain of pasta restaurants, there would be some in the restaurant industry who weren't thrilled about the competition, but it wouldn't get the attention of Capitol Hill. Going into the prescription drug industry in any way, shape, or form is going to get the attention of the political world. I'm sure part of what some of your competitors are saying is like, boy, we've had a good system here that really fosters innovation. It's the profits that we make that are able to fuel innovation. If Mark Cuban has his way, it's going to kill innovation.

I'm sure you've run into that line of reasoning. What is your response? Believe it or not, Chris, there's the manufacturers who do the R&D or purchase companies and get the FDA approvals and market the drugs. And then there's the big three companies that own the insurance companies, pharmacies, and PBMs. The big three with the PBMs, et cetera, they're at risk. The manufacturers actually, they see us as a benefit because the PBMs are asking for rebates in order to be able to make those drugs available to the pharmacies and on the form is formularies of the insurance companies and so the manufacturers see us as a plus because you know insulin is a good talking point right so the manufacturers talk all the time about

how their net price how their net revenues per vial of insulin has dropped continuously over the past you know half decade to decade while the price to consumers has unfortunately gone up for insulin. So everybody gets upset about the price of insulin, but it's not the manufacturer that typically sets the retail price. It's the PBM. It's these vertically integrated companies that go to the manufacturer and say, look, you have to set the retail price really high because we want you to be able to pay us rebates. And we want to be able to tell some of these people we do negotiations for big self-insured companies, the government that you set the list price at a thousand and we're giving you 40 off so that's 600 when the reality is you know on top of that

the the insurance company is asking for an additional or pbm is asking for an additional rebate and so there's all kinds of gamesmanship with the pricing the manufacturers would love to be able to say you know what cost plus drugs we'll sell it to you at our net price and you just pass that on market it up 15 because realize when you go to costplusdrugs.com and you see the drug that you're taking, the voxethrin, whatever, you're going to see what we pay. You're going to see our cost. You're going to see our markup at 15%. You're going to see that we charge $3 for a pharmacy dispense fee and $5 for shipping. So we're completely transparent. Manufacturers love that. I realized that this business has not yet

reached its first birthday. So maybe this is an unfair question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What do years two, three, and four look like for Cost Plus Drugs, for someone who is trying to get a sense, whether it's a competitor or an investor who's hoping that someday this is a business that gets spun out into the public markets? Other than adding drugs to the platform, do you go into the manufacturing business yourself? Do you start lining up more specific and deeper partnerships with the drug makers? Yeah, it's a great question, actually. To answer your question, one, we're already building a manufacturing plant in Dallas for sterile. There are all kinds of shortages

that occur with drugs, believe it or not. A lot of times, they're very simple drugs. Sterile water, Pitocin, things that are supposed to be regularly available, but because the markets aren't very big, the people who manufacture them like to create shortages because they take some of their inventory and sell it at a much higher price. We're working with hospitals to say, okay, what are the most impactful drugs that run into shortages that are generic, not pill, but typically injectable, because that's most difficult for hospitals. And we literally are finishing up a robotics-driven manufacturing site in Dallas where we'll be able to make sterile water and when we've made as much as we need to for the hospitals in four hours, switch over the

robots so then we can make Pitocin, make what we need to there four hours later, boom. And in terms of looking forward two or three years, if that market is as big as we think it is and we're able to end shortages for drugs that hospitals need, particularly pediatric drugs, not only are we going to feel really good and make a little bit of money, but we'll be able to expand our capacity hopefully by 10x, and buy some time so that the robotics get better, cheaper, faster. So that's part one. Obviously, we'll add more drugs. We'll get more into the branded drug.

Right now, we're primarily generics. We've got to deal with Roche for diabetic supplies, which are branded. We're going to be adding a significant number more. We're working on contracts there. So that's part two. Part three is we're putting together an affiliation of independent pharmacies and grocery chains so that in addition to getting from costplusdrugs.com as mail order, you'll be able to pick it up locally

so that if it's penicillin, amoxicillin, let's say, and you need it quickly because you have an infection, you may not be able to wait five to seven days with costplusdrugs via mail order, but with an affiliate network of independent pharmacies, then you'll be able to just go pick it up. And if there's any independent pharmacists out there, go to our twitter page and dms and we'd love to work with you so those are some of the big

changes and then we'll be coming up we're coming out with a benefit card that you'll be able to your employer will be able to use so that when you have a prescription you know your your insurance will be your employer will pay less which will save them money and hopefully eliminate your co-pay and you can take that and buy directly from us using mail order or from one of our affiliated pharmacy. More with Mark Cuban after the break, so stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Here's more of my conversation with Mark Cuban. I'm assuming as you were thinking about building this business, One of the thoughts that went through your mind beyond sort of the unfairness of the prescription drug market for consumers

was just the misaligned incentives, how the PBMs don't really have their incentives aligned with the customers. I'm curious if you see that playing out in other industries. If there are other industries that you look at and you think, well, I'm focused on this in the world of prescription drugs, but that industry over there, it seems like the same dynamics at play. Yeah. Other parts of healthcare, for sure, are the low-hanging fruit. Because again, there's so much uncertainty as a patient when you go to an emergency room, when you're in the hospital, when you're having a procedure done. And there are a lot of marketplace solutions that people are offering.

You know, hey, if you know you're going to get your hip replaced, just shop it. Or, you know, if you know you're going to have some other operation, you can go to a hospital website and see the cash price versus the insurance price. Like if I get a CT, I got a CT colonoscopy instead of the old Roto-Rooter version. And I just went to my hospital website and saw, you know, what the cash price was. and since it was through the insurance of my company that I self-insure, it was cheaper just to give them a credit card than to do it through our insurance plan. And so there's a lot of misaligned incentives there. And I think where this really, and again, when it comes to hospitals in particular, there is so much administration cost associated with insurance companies,

what they call payers, that there are going to be ways to disaggregate the insurance side of the business, and hopefully cut the cost to run emergency rooms and hospitals. But that's not going to be tomorrow. That's 10 years away, but it's certainly, hopefully, on our roadmap. You have owned the Dallas Mavericks for more than 20 years. You know what it means not just to own a professional sports team in America, but also what it is like to be in a room with other owners of other teams. Here in the Washington, D.C. area, it's being widely reported that the local football team might be up for sale, and that one of the people who might be interested in buying is someone you mentioned earlier in our conversation, Jeff Bezos.

What advice would you have for Jeff Bezos if he becomes one of a few dozen owners of an NFL team? It's not like any other business. Jeff is in the public eye, and he knows what it's like to be in the public eye. Even though he's not CEO, let's just talk in reference to Amazon. The Wall Street Journal might do an article every few months. On social media, there'll be something all the time. But the reality is, in sports, there's 17 games plus playoffs in the NFL. But during the off season, everybody cares about it. And so it's just a continuous drumbeat of interest. And fans are so passionate that if Amazon had a down quarter or struggling, people will accept it and understand it. People are not accepting or understanding in sports. You just bought a pickleball team.

Skeptical sports fans who have a lot of viewing options. Sell me on pickleball. I guess that's my question. Why am I watching professional pickleball? Because it's fun. It's table tennis, it's ping pong on a tennis court and they're super athletic and it's a sport that anybody can play. Anybody can be okay at, but the level, it's like basketball or softball versus baseball, or, you know, where there's sports that anybody can participate. Um, but the pros are at a whole different level. And when you go to watch one or you watch it on TV or streaming that the level

athleticism and quickness and hand-eye coordination and quickness is insane. So I'm not saying it's going to replace basketball or football, but it's really a fun show. It's really a fun sport to watch in person, and it's not so bad on television. Here's an update on that last topic. Since Mark and I spoke, I have actually seen professional pickleball. I was channel flipping one weekend and stumbled upon it on one of the channels, and he's right. Pickleball is pretty entertaining to watch on TV. Just a reminder that you can hear Motley Fool Money every weekend on radio stations across America and on every podcast app out there. If you're not listening to the podcast yet, you can follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart, even YouTube. And if you're already

listening to our podcast, quick programming note, we have a special bonus episode dropping on Christmas Eve. We're going to be off for Christmas and Boxing Day, but back to work on December 27th. And next weekend, it's our 2023 preview show. We'll be talking about industries and trends to watch, stocks to avoid, stocks looking attractive, CEOs on the hot seat, and of course, reckless predictions. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. That's it for this week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening.

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