'When we talk about infrastructure we need to consider climate': Mark Cuban

Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban breaks down how a new infrastructure bill will help stimulate the economy and resurrect jobs. He joins Yahoo Finance's On The Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: I want to read the latest tweet from President Trump as we move into a very important discussion with Mark Cuban. President Trump has said, quote, with interest rates for the United States being at zero, this is the time to do our decades' long awaited infrastructure bill. It should be-- all caps-- very big and bold, $2 trillion, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding this once great infrastructure of our country, exclamation point, phase four.

Mark Cuban needs no introduction. But just in case you forget, he is a billionaire. He is an entrepreneur. He is the owner of the Mavericks, the NBA team, and he is with us right now on Yahoo Finance. Mr. Cuban, thank you. What do you think about what the president's calling for?

MARK CUBAN: well he's right. But the question is, how do we do it? And what do we do?

I don't think we can just go do it the old-school way of just rebuilding roads and bridges. We need to look to say, can we do a complete reset? You know, what do we need to do going forward? We've seen what happens when we don't have critical manufacturing here.

But you can't just bring over manufacturing and expect it to be competitive. I think we need to invest in robotics as an example. We are not the leader in robotics in the world. So when we talk about infrastructure, we can talk about building the basis for new factories that incorporate robotics and building software, so then we can start bringing over those jobs from China and manufacture the critical PPE and other products that we need to have manufactured here.

That's part one. Part two, you know, we have to be cognizant of climate change, and we have to be cognizant of keeping emissions low for our future. And so when we talk about rebuilding infrastructure, I think we need to start talking about having self-driving car only lanes in roads. We need to talk about, on highways, how do we make sure that self-driving trucks and autonomous vehicles can operate with cross-country load carrying?

We need to look at, in cities, how are we going to get people able to trust self-driving cars? So maybe we take a page from Las Vegas and put bridges over the top of roads so people, rather than crossing the street, where they'll be concerned about autonomous vehicles, put them so they can walk over the top like they do in Vegas. But all these things together, really, creates infrastructure 4.0 so that we're looking towards the future rather than trying to recreate the past.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Mark, it's Julia La Roche here, and thank you, again, for joining us. Basically, this infrastructure 4.0 that you're talking about, it's a modernization of infrastructure, the next generation. My question for you is, what happens if we don't take that route? What happens if we just do the old-school infrastructure play?

MARK CUBAN: Then we're going to be back and getting the same results and having the same problems we've always had. Look, it's great to rebuild roads. Nobody wants to drive through pot holes. We want to create those jobs.

But at some point in the future, we're going to ask ourselves why don't we consider the fact that we going towards autonomous driving? You know, it's just obvious. This isn't something where we're projecting Jetsons-like, you know, events and we don't really know what's going to happen.

We know autonomous vehicles are going to be part of our future. We're already starting to see it. We know that we need to be able to do cross-country loads using self-driving trucks. You see Elon Musk pushing in that direction.

So we have to pay attention to reality. We can't recreate the past. We need to create a foundation for the future.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And Mark, I want to turn to small business because I think your experience on Shark Tank, that's how a lot of folks know you. It's so instructive. You have such a pulse as to what's going on with small businesses, medium-sized businesses. You've been tweeting about this. What is your read as to what's going on with that community? What are the biggest challenges? What are the things that are not necessarily being talked about?

MARK CUBAN: Obviously, it's brutal. I mean, there are issues for every company of every size, but small business always takes the brunt of it because they live, you know, month to month. I mean, I remember my first company, just being excited. I was in business one month, two months, three months. And when you have a cataclysmic event like we're going through right now, it's just very, very difficult to stay in business.

There's two things people really need to be cognizant of. One, the fact that the new stimulus bill passed and, for small businesses, it includes able a payroll protection program. And that's just now getting rolled out to banks, and all the details are being given by the SBA to banks.

And what that does is it says, for any small business with 500 or fewer employees, you can apply, through your bank, not the SBA.gov site, but through your bank. And if you commit to-- and then, sorry, for under 500 employees, apply through your bank, and you can borrow enough to pay your payroll for up to three months for all employees who make $100,000 or less plus your utilities, plus your rent, and plus some incremental expenses.

And if you commit to retain all your employees as of today, then you don't have to pay it back. It literally is the best stimulus bill ever for small businesses. So if you are an entrepreneur, if you're a small business operator, you need to be cognizant of this. And you need to apply ASAP. That's number one.

Number two is there's companies that are actually doing OK, you know, grocery stores, if you sell toilet paper I have a company DUDE Wipes that sells an alternative to toilet paper. I have a company, Shark Tank company, Mush, that sells oatmeal that can be stored in your fridge or pantry or whatever. If you sell products like that that we can put in our pantries, that we want to keep at home, your business is actually doing well.

So if you've lost your job and you're looking to replace it, look at, you know, those types of companies. Or if you're a service provider, you're a contractor that does creative work, you do videos, whatever it may be, social media, look for those kinds of companies because there are some companies that are doing well. And you want to try to go to them and see if you can work with them.

JULIE HYMAN: So Mark, it's Julie Hyman here, and it's good to talk to you and good to have you here. So what you're talking about, this stimulus bill that, astonishingly perhaps, in this environment, got through Congress-- it kind of had to. Whether you're looking at that or you're looking at the potential for an infrastructure bill, I'm curious what kind of faith you have in the federal government right now to sort of fix these problems, and address these problems, and come to consensus, not just right now but going forward in taking us out of this?

MARK CUBAN: So right now, I think everybody's back's against the wall, and I think that's when Americans do their best work. So you know, obviously, they passed this bill. I do trust them to pass the next bill even though it will be just so much pork in there.

But sometimes you don't have a choice. You know, perfection is the enemy of progress. And I think we don't need a perfect bill. We just need something that stimulates the economy, and helps keep people working, or gets them back to work.

So you know, in terms of moving forward once these bills are passed, just look at the stimulus bill and the $1,200 checks. The Treasury Department is saying, you know, three weeks, that's just not going to work. People are scared. People have lost their jobs.

Millions, if not tens of millions, of people have already lost their jobs, you know, are applying for unemployment benefits. They need that $1,200 check to give them some semblance of control over their lives, to know that they can put food on the table for their family. And so, you know, you can already see some cracks in the armor in terms of execution. And I think we, as American people, have got to push them.

I know I've been really active in trying to work with small- and medium-sized banks. You know, we mentioned off air that we're working with Edmonds Bank, and you can look at all of my tweets on [INAUDIBLE]. And they've actually put together a really good program, but just for their depositors, that allow their depositors to get overdraft protection that will be refunded, that'll be paid back to the bank, when the $1,200 checks come through. Hopefully, other banks will follow their lead and do the exact same things because we can't depend on government to execute quickly enough for all this stimulus to have impact.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Mark, actually what you wrote in that tweet was, quote, this is what every small bank should be doing. Thanks to citizens. And [INAUDIBLE] you actually direct messaged with a woman in charge there for [INAUDIBLE] the program to the depositors that gives them early access to the federal stimulus checks.

MARK CUBAN: [INAUDIBLE]

ADAM SHAPIRO: This sets up the next question because, as we were introducing you, we had the news from [? Simon ?] Properties, largest landlord malls in the country, furloughing 30% of their staff. What advice do you have for companies? Because there's this push to get everyone back to work, but you have warned companies to, quote, think beyond the short term revenue gains of bringing employees back to work.

MARK CUBAN: You know, I know the Simons. They're great people. And I know it breaks [INAUDIBLE] and David-- I know it breaks their heart to do this, that they'd only do it because they have no choice. But you've got to be cognizant of the reality these days, that what you do as a company today is how you will be branded for the next decade, if not more, how you treat your employees will be defined, how your company is considered, and whether or not people will do business with you for a long, long time.

You know, the Simons are in a little different position just because, you know, they have real estate, and that's just getting crushed. But in particular, for small- and medium-sized businesses, recognizing that you probably are going to be able to get this payroll protection plan from the SBA, do everything possible to keep your employees on payroll. That's part one.

Part two, everybody is stressed right now, everybody-- the entrepreneurs, the owners of these companies, employees. You have to communicate. You know, I've talked to a lot of people who have said, you know what? So many people in my company have been laid off, and all we got was an email saying, you know, you're being furloughed, or laid off, or fired.

You can't do that. That is the biggest mistake you can make. You can't fire people by email in this period. You've got to communicate. Even if you have 1,000 employees, you have to work through HR and touch each one of them personally.

And if you're concerned that you might lose your job and you work for a small- or medium-sized company maybe that doesn't have an HR department, you have to be proactive and talk to your boss and talk, maybe, to the CEO or the owner of the company and say, you know, what can we do to work together? Everybody is terrified. This is not unique just to employees, and it's not unique just to small business owners.

But communication has to be involved because it may well be that the best idea comes from an employee who says, you know, what about this idea? I think we can handle it because the people on the front lines, the people who deal with your customers, the people who deal with all the employees in your organization, they probably are going to have a better handle on how everybody feels than the CEO.

So communication is key. Transparency is key. You can't b.s. people. You know, oh, business is going to be fine, and then, all of a sudden, you're laying people off. No, be brutally honest.

And also carry that over to your customers. You know, hey, Mr. and Ms. customer, here's where we stand. How can we figure this out together? If we do those three things, then we have a chance to, really, mitigate as much as we can.

If we don't, if we just, you know, look at the bottom line and say, I have to cut this number of people or, you know, I don't want to deal with giving people the bad news, then that's where things really start to cascade. And it's not just any individual company. It's not just any individual community. It cascades throughout the country and throughout the world.

Just small business has such an impact on this country. If you're the CEO or even if you're just a line employee, speak up. Communicate. Share your ideas because this is where we need the greatest ideas. And you never know where they're going to come from.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And Mark, I think a lot of folks really, really admire what you did, you know, stepping up to make sure that the hourly employees were taken care of. And as you were mentioning, communication is really important. Leadership is really important.

I got to ask you this because you're starting to see this theme of stakeholder capitalism come to a litmus test, if you will. A lot of the folks who signed that business roundtable letter back in the fall are really being put to the test. So how do you think we should think about capitalism going forward? What do you think the future of business will, ultimately, look like?

MARK CUBAN: Capitalism is what's going to save us, right? Capitalism didn't get us here. A virus did. You know, the one thing about the United States of America that's different than every other country on the planet is that we're a country of entrepreneurs. We look to start businesses.

When we talk about the American dream, when we talk about rags-to-riches stories, it starts with an entrepreneur coming up with an idea and then executing on that idea. We're going to get to the other side of this. I'm positive of that. And we're going to look back in five years, and there's going to be 5, 10, 15, 20, however many companies, that were started out of all this that turned into just world changing companies.

That's where capitalism really shines. You know, when things are going really, really good, like we saw leading up to, you know, a month ago, then the gap between the top and the bottom expands. When we go through something like that, the top shrinks. You know, the bottom only has so far to go, unfortunately, but that's the reality.

And when people lose their jobs and they go to unemployment, you know, they shrink, but there's only so far to go. The top just gets compressed significantly. And that's what we're seeing now.

So income inequality hasn't been solved, but it's been-- you know, the delta has been reduced. Now, with capitalism, you know, we can start to learn from our mistakes and say, we need to have our employees participate more so that, when we build back up but when we grow, then everybody can. Participate

I'm a big believer that every company-- and I've done this with my startups, every company I've started-- every employee should have stock and ownership in their company. And when I sold my companies, every single employee has benefited. And I think, when we go forward, capitalism will lift us up from where we are.

But we have to learn from our mistakes and really encourage that every entrepreneur, every one of those great companies that's getting started right now-- I don't care if you're 16-years-old or 60-years-old and you're starting a company. When you start that company, you hire people. Give equity to your employees because anybody working hour to hour and getting paid and not having certainty where how many hours they're going to get, they're never going to climb up the ladder.

They're never going to be in a position where they're not living paycheck to paycheck. The only way you solve that is by giving them appreciable assets. Hopefully, homeownership plays a role but also equity in the companies that you started.

So I think every entrepreneur, going forward, has got to show the good side of capitalism and let everybody participate, let every single employee, no matter what their job is, get equity in the company so that, if you just have astronomical success, all those employees benefit as well.

When we sold broadcast.com way back when, out of 330 employees, 300 became millionaires. And those 30 weren't only because they had started later in the cycle. Everybody should participate.

So capitalism, I truly believe, is going to lift us up, and it's going to make us stronger again. But we have to be smarter as capitalists and make sure that everybody participates this time around. Whether it's infrastructure or new companies, this is a chance for a reset, and we have to be smart.

JULIE HYMAN: Mark, it's Julie again. I appreciate your optimism about capitalism. But doesn't this crisis also show us the value of the safety net and the fact that that needs to be strengthened as well?

Look at what's happening with our public health system in this country right now. It is clearly strained. We're not necessarily seeing leadership-- certainly didn't see leadership going into this on the strength of that system. So what role does that play alongside capitalism as we come out of this?

MARK CUBAN: Look, obviously, you need a safety net. That's why the stimulus package was passed, and we were somewhat agile as a government. And in terms of health care, whether you have single-- look, if you want to get into the health care system, I know it intimately.

I've actually just had a whole program that just got evaluated by the Rand Corporation on how we could change to a hybrid of single payer and free market and really solve a lot of these problems. But that's a topic for another day. But the bigger question is, do we need safety nets? Yes.

The question is, how do you deal with it? And how is it paid for? And you know, how do hospitals participate? Because each of the stakeholders along the way, whether it's providers, whether it's insurance companies, they all have a roles in the problems that have been created.

So yes, we need safety nets. The question is, how do we enable them? And that's a long, long answer that I'm happy to talk about any other time.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, we're not going to go and let you get away anytime soon. Mark Cuban, stick around. We have much more with you. We have a great deal more coming up on Yahoo Finance.

Also I want to let everybody know that our Sibile Marcellus actually got an exclusive interview with Ivanka Trump, Senior Advisor to President Trump. That interview is coming to you in the next hour and a half, right here on Yahoo Finance.