Mark Cuban: "Give Employees Stock"

LinkedIn's Daniel Roth interviewed billionaire investor Mark Cuban and posted the online interview. In it, Cuban makes it clear that he is not talking just about a sense of ownership—he’s been quoted for decades as a supporter of employee ownership: “When we sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo, 20 years ago give or take, out of 330 employees, 300 became millionaires. And those 30 weren't only because they started too late. But they got paid as well." (Also see our June 17, 2019, blog post.)

Cuban also said (25:00 to 25:20), “if you’re running a company now and you need help from your employees, give them equity. Give them stock in a meaningful way, because you’re going to need them to grow your company. We’re all going to need them to grow this country and this world back to where we were economically.” He argued that stock ownership can increase economic security and help reduce social inequality.

He also advocated for systematically asking everyone at a company to generate ideas (27:14 to 27:25): "Now of all times, no CEO, no entrepreneur can do this alone. You need every single employee committed to helping you get through this. Recognize that. Reward them for it."

Inc. magazine posted the online article Mark Cuban: Want Your Business to Survive? Make Employees Owners based on the interview on May 13.