Billionaire Mark Cuban Says If His Tax Rate Was Zero, He’d Build a Company ‘So Stinking Profitable’ Employees Would Get Paid Every Time He Did
If taxes were eliminated tomorrow, would workers actually see more money, or would companies keep the difference?
Billionaire entrepreneur and Cost Plus Drugs co-founder Mark Cuban He says this question misses the point. in 2019 GQ video When answering fans’ questions, Cuban focused on something else entirely: who owned the company before the money showed up.
The premise sounds fair but says it’s flawed
The question asked to Cuban was simple. If the tax rate dropped to zero, would he give that extra money to employees?
“I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do,” he said.
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“If taxes go to zero, which I don’t think is a good idea, but if taxes go to zero, I would invest in the company to make it bigger and more profitable,” Cuban said. “It’s so profitable that whenever I get paid because the employees own the company, they get paid the same way.”
His answer changes his focus. It is out of the question to distribute money after profits are made. It’s about structuring the business in such a way that employees are already committed to those profits.
Broadcast.com turned ownership into real money
Cuban pointed to a deal he knew very well.
“If you remember what I said about Broadcast.com, when we sold the company we were millionaires with 300 shares of our own stock out of 330 employees,” he said.
When Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion, approximately 91% of employees had equity. This meant that the payout reached far beyond the leadership.
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These employees don’t just see the gains on paper, Cuban said. Besides the stock value, it ensured that payouts included actual money tied to the sale. At that time, it was not common to give ownership rights to so many employees. It sparked criticism. It also created hundreds of millionaires.
It wasn’t just a company, it always says it does
Cuban’s example didn’t end with Broadcast.com.
“In every business I sold, I paid bonuses to every employee who worked there for more than a year,” he wrote. Publish on X In 2024.
This extends the model. The approach was not tied to one parent or one company. He said multiple businesses have employees who share in the outcome when those companies are sold.
It matches what he said in the GQ interview. Ownership during construction. Payments when value is realized.
