Enter the Dungeon: An IRL Showdown with Mark Cuban on Kawhi-Gate

Pablo Torre: Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Clip plays: "Kudos to you for finding your sources. No issues there. The conclusions you came to, s*** on Steve Ballmer, and that was wrong."]

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Pablo Torre: ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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Pablo Torre: Hey, there he is. It's a dungeon in here. Welcome to the dungeon.

Mark Cuban: Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me.

Pablo Torre: Thanks for coming in.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, of course.

Pablo Torre: Water, bathroom, coffee.

Mark Cuban: Already got the bathroom. Smelling salts.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, hopefully not. Even though I haven't got much sleep, I'll take it.

Mark Cuban: Good to see you. Patrick, nice to meet you. I was going to say, you're a wildly busy person, so this is a lot of fun for you to do this for us.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, Cosmos has been driving me crazy. Just the pharmaceutical industry, you know. Casually trying to upend the pharmaceutical industry. Trying to change healthcare, why not?

Pablo Torre: Test, test, test. That's what you want in line?

Mark Cuban: Yeah, if you could. That'd be great.

Pablo Torre: Look at that. Thank you. Double-fisted.

Mark Cuban: Double-fisted. It's the only way you roll, Pablo, I know. Just the finest. The most luxurious.

Pablo Torre: Hello, how are you doing? Just for reference before we start, this dial is for your own voice.

Mark Cuban: Mm-hmm.

Pablo Torre: And the second one is for Pablo's. Turn down Pablo, turn up mine. Look, I promised over email this would be respectful. I totally just do your thing. Yeah, go where you want to go. I'm easy peasy.

Pablo Torre: The thing I want to start with is to say thank you for giving me the line that now leads my resume, which is "a great podcast entertainer, great acting skills, but in terms of getting to the real real, not so much." There you go. I'm here to oblige.

Mark Cuban: I want to do this in a way that's probably, hopefully, a little different, a little more fun than like Frost Nixon.

Pablo Torre: Okay. I actually just want to understand your life right now. I mean, you're in New York. Thank you for being here in studio formally. Why are you here? What's going on? How am I fitting in?

Mark Cuban: A healthcare conference for 32BJ. It's a union and they work with a variety of unions and organizations. So I came in to talk about what we're doing with costplusdrugs.com to reduce the cost of pharmacy, to change healthcare, to help guide them as they negotiate new contracts. Just the basic stuff. So I had it on the schedule for a couple months already.

Pablo Torre: Just the basic stuff. I wasn't sure. Was this stop in New York part of your larger plan to eventually become the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission?

Mark Cuban: Yeah, right. That was my goal all along, right? You got me. Pablo finds out.

Pablo Torre: But you did want to be SEC chair for Kamala.

Mark Cuban: No, I had no interest in being SEC chair.

Pablo Torre: You said it at one point.

Mark Cuban: No, that was me f***ing with Gary Gensler because I thought he was an idiot.

Pablo Torre: Oh. Well, this is why I asked the follow-up questions.

Mark Cuban: Right, that's what you do.

Pablo Torre: But some of the bio for people who are... It's funny, again, for me to be like, "By the way, I talk to Mark Cuban a lot these days." But for those who are not familiar with your oeuvre... Minority owner now, oeuvre. What does that even mean?

Mark Cuban: Your body of work.

Pablo Torre: Oh, my body of work, okay. It's a little French. I'm trying to class you up, Cuban.

Mark Cuban: There you go. I need all the help classing me up as I can get. No, look, you're the minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, 27%, we've established that. Also, you co-own a Major League Pickleball team.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: The Dallas Flash.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, did they change the name to Flash? Are they Dallas Flash? I don't even know.

Mark Cuban: I did as a favor to a friend. But I like pickleball some. It's fun to watch.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your Dallas Flash. That's right. And, you know, you mentioned great acting skills. Great acting skills. You see me in Play Dirty here recently?

Mark Cuban: I watched it this week.

Pablo Torre: What?

[Clip plays from "Play Dirty"]

Mark Cuban: How was the steak?

Pablo Torre: Fine.

Mark Cuban: The Lady of Orantaro?

Pablo Torre: Our honor. And you are...

Mark Cuban: Impatient. Where is she?

[Sound of gunshot]

Pablo Torre: Whoa. Is Mark Wahlberg brandishing a firearm?

Mark Cuban: At a white tablecloth restaurant in front of you? Tough guy.

[Clip continues: "And an associate? Do you have any concept who the f*** you're talking to? You're not answering my question. I don't have to, moron. I'm one of the most important people on the planet. This isn't some rat-infested alley. You're out of your league. You're dealing with a different class of people now."]

Pablo Torre: What a smirk.

[Clip continues: "You know how long I'm a... Jesus Christ!"]

Pablo Torre: The best part was Mark Wahlberg was not there when we were shooting it.

Mark Cuban: Oh, that was...

Pablo Torre: So that was all acting. That's just me putting myself in the moment.

Mark Cuban: A method smirk.

Pablo Torre: Yes. The fear. The smirk. There's just a zillion things I actually do want to ask you about. I want to get to at some point like Dallas and Mavs and Luka, if that's okay at some point, at the end maybe. But the reason, of course, you're here is because you remain by far the most devoted, most famous, most polarizing, most public member of Team Bomber.

Mark Cuban: Yes, sir.

Pablo Torre: As you have come to call it. Do you know how much you have tweeted about this story in my reporting?

Mark Cuban: Not really, no.

Pablo Torre: You have sent 160 tweets. Most of them were just little tiny responses. A couple of them were articles.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: The one time was like the 4,000 words or whatever. You typed a total of 17,053 words in 36 days.

Mark Cuban: A lot of that is chat GPT generated, but yes.

Pablo Torre: I suspected that. I feel no less insulted by that. But nonetheless, I'm here to confront you and the robot.

Mark Cuban: Please do.

Pablo Torre: And I just want to try to keep this accessible, as always, to the general audience. So I guess the conversation, which I want to begin here, starts with a simple question. Why do you think the sheer existence of the Aspiration sponsorship deal with Kawhi Leonard was never announced in any way through a press release or anything ever?

Mark Cuban: The deal was signed, if I'm remembering correctly, April 4th of 22, but it was dated April 1st. March 30th was a much bigger announcement, and they didn't want to step on each other. That's the first reason.

Pablo Torre: Do you know what that announcement is?

Mark Cuban: Please.

Pablo Torre: Oh, I thought you would know.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no. What announcement?

Pablo Torre: Oh, that's when they announced their deal with the Boston Red Sox, which was an $80 million deal. And that's where they were going to get their logo on the field, right by the batter's box, not by the batter's box, but by the on-deck circle, all that stuff. So it was an $80 million deal. Rule number one of marketing, when you're getting PR and you've signed a big deal, you don't step on it. And so once I saw that they had done this big deal and realized how big it was, it made perfect sense why they didn't announce it then, right? And then after that, the people who had done the deal... when I shouldn't say the people, because Joe Sandberg did the deal, but they changed over the focus of their business. And as best we can tell, no one wanted him there and no one wanted to do the deal. And so there was no reason to announce it. That's my perception.

Pablo Torre: Well, so just the Red Sox deal, we mentioned that at episode one of the show. I'm glad you bring it into this context because it was another deal, another real sports team that Aspiration got into business with, of course. So let's say that Aspiration didn't want to announce this. Kawhi didn't want to announce this. No one wanted to announce this.

Mark Cuban: No, no one said... No, no, no, now you're putting words into the system here, right? So there's a difference between making the right marketing move, right? So you just signed an $80 million deal with the Red Sox and the Red Sox come out and say, like the Clippers did September of 21. So that would be six months earlier or whatever, right? That how important the whole carbon credits thing was and conservation was to them, right? So a big part of the Red Sox deal was very similar to the Clippers deal. In fact, they look... I'm gonna use my bet. In fact, they look very similar to each other.

Pablo Torre: I'm trying to, I'm gonna let you.

Mark Cuban: I am with you. No, I look...

Pablo Torre: So they're very similar to each other.

Mark Cuban: So, right. I've seen hundreds of emails with the Red Sox and aspiration. The premise here, again, is we're zeroing out the carbon footprint. Right. So it was very important to the Red Sox like it was to Bomber. So nothing unusual there. Right. So the question becomes, right. Why did the marketing people not do anything with Kawhi? Well, on one hand, that's the question you asked me, right?

Pablo Torre: No, no. The question actually was simpler. It was why did no one ever say that this deal existed at all in any way ever?

Mark Cuban: Well, first of all, we don't know that for certain.

Pablo Torre: I have never seen anything. I've said this for five episodes and no one's ever provided a counter argument or a factual correction or evidence.

Mark Cuban: Two ways to activate the deal. One is like you're expecting. Let's do the tweet. The things that were in the contract that he was never asked to do.

Pablo Torre: I actually just want to be very clear and specific here. I just mean they announced with celebrities all of the time. We signed Leo DiCaprio and we signed Drake and we signed Robert Downey Jr. and Orlando Bloom and Cindy Crawford. When did they announce all those things? All in this time period. When did they announce those? Is your argument going to be that by the time they signed Kawhi Leonard to a deal that was four times larger than everyone else combined in that celebrity roster, they had decided to no longer care about celebrities?

Mark Cuban: No. My point was they were not profitable, but they were fully and well-funded in 2021. And they were run with the goal of having a consumer product, the credit card from Aspiration Bank. And what you do with a consumer product is night and day different than what you do with a B2B product, right? So making those announcements make perfect sense. Now come April of 22, they were in deep shit, right? And as you know, and I think you're, some of the folks have told you that the conversation, because we know Uncle Dennis incorporated KL2 Aspire, I think it was called, in November of 21. So they had been talking for a long time and it had been delayed, obviously for a considerable period of time. So the fact that it was delayed is one indicator. Because if they were really excited to sign the deal and use Kawhi, the marketing team would have been pushing, let's get this done because we really have a lot of places for him to use. Right. The opposite, of course, happens, right? The marketing people, the CMO doesn't know who Kawhi Leonard is even. So the question is, why was there a deal?

Pablo Torre: No, I think the question is still why, just to keep on the first question, why past April did no one mention that they had signed Kawhi Leonard at all?

Mark Cuban: Because they were in a different business at that point.

Pablo Torre: Not as of... That month?

Mark Cuban: Yeah. If you look at their numbers from September 30th of 2021, the last real numbers they had that they published. So I guess what I'm saying is what we agree on is this was a bad deal for Aspiration to sign as of April 2022.

Pablo Torre: Not necessarily.

Mark Cuban: Right. So here's what you haven't discussed at all yet. Right. And that is activation. And I'm not talking about traditional marketing activation. So you've been to the Staples Center, right?

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: So, you know, here's the court level seats. And then a lot of people go into the tunnel. And they have that club that's there, right, where all the celebrities hang out and everything. And then the people who buy the court, the front row seats have access to that, correct? And they see the players walking through and it's not unusual because it's happened to me, I'm sure it's happened to you, where people, fans right there that have come from the court will stop you and take pictures, introduce you to customers, da-da-da-da-da. We have no evidence one way or the other, but I'd be willing to bet that a dollar to a dime, right, that Joe Samberg took full advantage of that and was able to use Kawhi just to take a picture, to say hello, just like I've done a thousand times with the Mavericks, right? Oh, we signed a deal with this sponsor. Hey, Mark, a sponsor's in town. Or hey, Mark, a sponsor's going to be at the game. Will you take pictures with them? Sure. Sure. Easy peasy, right? Just have them in the tunnel before halftime or after the game. Easy access. So when I talked to people, the one person, two people I know, but one person I talked to that worked at Aspiration, they said, yeah.

Pablo Torre: I love how you've been doing reporting, by the way.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, just because they reached out to me, right? The one I hear about them reaching out to you.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, I know. And I know. And I said I was fine with it, right? So I had no problem. And likewise.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: And so it's just normal business, right? So the issue is that the guy that's going to... one of the guys going to jail, Joe Sandberg, right? He obviously was the one that did the deal because even in your tweet, it said Joe is slow rolling the deal.

Mark Cuban: No, he said to Joe from Uncle Dennis that Mike, the lawyer... Mike Chuckerole, the general counsel.

Pablo Torre: General counsel was slow rolling the deal, right? That it was obvious that Joe Sandberg had signed. So the value proposition here where we disagree, and we don't really have detail one way or the other, but where we disagree is the value proposition wasn't necessarily to the marketing people at Aspiration. It was to Joe Sandberg specifically.

Pablo Torre: Why do we disagree about that?

Mark Cuban: Well, because I think that's where he utilized Kawhi. He got his money's worth. I fully agree that Joe Sandberg was the one to benefit from this deal. It wasn't the marketing of Aspiration. The question is, what was the goal Joe Sandberg wanted to achieve? And you have this theory that Joe was using it to glad hand with Kawhi during the games that the Clippers were playing, or before or after, or whatever.

Pablo Torre: No, I've even evolved that theory.

Mark Cuban: Okay, but I guess what I'm saying is, the reason Joe Sandberg wanted to do it was because, of course, he had a relationship with Steve Ballmer, and there was an agreement, hey, we're going to do this deal that no one ever is going to know about.

Pablo Torre: I don't know that.

Mark Cuban: But what I'm saying is, I know that based on...

Pablo Torre: You're making that up.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, I have nine sources that told me that.

Pablo Torre: No, nine sources that worked in the accounts payable department.

Mark Cuban: Not all finance.

Pablo Torre: Not all finance. Mark, Mark, Mark. So look, what I want to make clear here is a couple of things because you're really good at talking and being shot by Mark Wahlberg. Incredible at both those things. There is simply no evidence that this deal was ever announced in any way. And the reason I keep on harping on this is because at a certain point, if you are Joe Sandberg, selfish guy who wants to boast and peacock about all the things he's done, you would want to say, no, we also have this deal with this guy.

Mark Cuban: No, no, so you're not... You don't. So if you look at Joe Sandberg, right, what was his job at Aspiration? I mean, so this question...

Pablo Torre: This matters.

Mark Cuban: I have many ways that I can talk about this for a very long time.

Pablo Torre: Okay.

Mark Cuban: Joe Sandberg was not actually an employee of Aspiration.

Pablo Torre: No kidding.

Mark Cuban: But what he was, was the co-founder and they want to peacock about all of the celebrities, all of the sports teams. I have a deal with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Orlando Bloom, Drake, the Crawfords and Kawhi Leonard, who he paid for the price, by the way, the price of what you're saying, the glad handing theory, $48 million.

Pablo Torre: No, he did it. He paid him $3.5 million. The agreement, the contract says.

Mark Cuban: But if you know you have no money to pay the agreement, it's meaningless.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no, no, no. He knew he had no money to pay it. Mark.

Mark Cuban: Just like me saying, Pablo, I'm going to give you $200 million right now.

Pablo Torre: So what we need to establish here is that Joe Sandberg may know, right, at the time of the deal, he has no intention of paying the total term of the deal. He has no money. But Kawhi Leonard absolutely thinks it's a real deal.

Mark Cuban: Yeah. It's a real contract.

Pablo Torre: Yeah. So the point is the intent of what we're doing here. The intent on Uncle Dennis' and Kawhi's side is obvious. The intent on Joe Sandberg's side is not, right? So why would Joe...

Mark Cuban: Uncle Dennis wants to get paid.

Pablo Torre: Okay, so we established that there is no evidence at all that this deal was ever announced anywhere.

Mark Cuban: Unless, I mean, not publicly, no. We agree.

Pablo Torre: Not to a major audience. I've been waiting, man. I was hoping you might bring it in. I've been waiting for anyone to tell me why was this a top secret deal that they never talked about. My theory is they wanted to keep it secret because it was a $48 million no-show contract that circumvented the cap. Your theory is something that is not that.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, no. Let's move on.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no, no, no, no. Not just we... let's just move on. Because what's at stake? Because at the exact same time the Kawhi deal was signed, right, Joe Samberg was also trying to take over Blue Apron. And he didn't have the money to do that either. And so he was looking to do an acquisition that was, I don't know, I don't know the exact amount, but there's plenty of evidence on documentation out there. Where he effectively was lying to say he had the money in May of 22 or whenever the day was. Was eventually pleading guilty to wire fraud.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, for sure. But you've got to look at from here. So you want to know what the intent was. So you're asking the question. We agree that Joe Samberg initiated the deal and negotiated the deal with Uncle Dennis and Mitch Franco.

Pablo Torre: The initiation, I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm merely saying what we know.

Mark Cuban: Okay, negotiate the deal.

Pablo Torre: So are you agreeing that Joe Samberg was the one who negotiated this deal?

Mark Cuban: I cannot tell you that he's the only one who was involved.

Pablo Torre: Mark, I'm a journalist. I know that he was involved, but is he the only one in the room negotiating?

Mark Cuban: Okay, so most of them...

Pablo Torre: I can't say that.

Mark Cuban: Fine, right? So if he's the driving force and he's taking responsibility for this, isn't it relevant what else was going on in his financial life?

Pablo Torre: Oh, and absolutely. And so the timeline that I wanted to point us to is...

Mark Cuban: So here we are, right? So here he is, he's committed to a deal with Kawhi that pays $1.75 million a quarter to be paid first on June 30th, right, of 2022. That was the first payment he was doing. When it was due, right? So at the same time, at the same time, knows he doesn't have the money. Because we know from the September 30th, 2021 financials, which would have been after Balmer put in his money, that they only had $13 million left. So Balmer puts in his money in September of 2021. Right, so September 30th. So he put it in September 14th or 17th, one of those two dates of 2021. And as of September 30th of 2021, according to the S-4 that was filed by Interprivate because of the SPAC that they were trying to take. Private was the holding company that was going to absorb them. Make everybody all the money, right? The SPAC at $2.3 billion, which is a valuation that came up when, Mark? Because Steve Ballmer and Oaktree Capital Management invested together and resulted in this valuation of, whoa!

Pablo Torre: No, that's not how it works. That's not how it works.

Mark Cuban: Of course it is.

Pablo Torre: No, it's not how it works. That's not how a SPAC is valued, but that's besides the point. That's not really relevant at this point.

Mark Cuban: I think it's deeply relevant. It speaks to why Joe Sandberg was doing the deal at all.

Pablo Torre: Well, okay, he wanted to get the payout, right? Because that was the only thing that could save his ass. He wanted to be in business with Steve Ballmer who gave him $50 million personally alongside Oak Tree. And guess what? The SPAC that wasn't over $2 billion as a valuation was after that roughly $300 million infusion came out.

Mark Cuban: You're missing the point because you're trying to just drive at just the one thing you know, okay? I'm talking about like sports washing and I think you're trying to talk about lots of other things.

Pablo Torre: No, you're not letting me finish, right?

Mark Cuban: Please, please.

Pablo Torre: All right. So now we know from Joe Sandberg's perspective, he's got Kawhi that this company owns $28 million to. Plus $20 million in an equity deal.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but that's coming from him personally. That's worthless.

Pablo Torre: And so... It's relevant, but I'll...

Mark Cuban: Okay, that's fine. We're going with it, right? So that's one. Two, he also committed to the Red Sox to pay $7 million a year, the exact same day, the day before. So that's another seven, right? They're collecting these sports deals. Right. At the same time, he owes personally $145 million that he is unable to pay. And he's hoping that he can figure all this out. But what we also know is that Ballmer invested September 14th or 17th of 2021. And there are published financials that Interprivate put to the SEC that shows they only have $13 million. So at the time that long before, I should say long before Joe Sandberg completed this deal, he knew they had no money.

Pablo Torre: Oh, oh, oh, so we...

Mark Cuban: He knew he had this because all the money, think about it, all the money. And then when you had numbers after that. You know what happened to the money? They're not counting the marketing dollars against their valuation. It's because they're just spending it all.

Pablo Torre: Right, that special, I forget what they call it. It's amazing. They made up an acronym.

Mark Cuban: They made up an acronym, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the point being that I fully agree and have reported that the money goes in from Ballmer and others and the money goes out almost immediately.

Mark Cuban: Immediately, right? It's crazy.

Pablo Torre: But think about that. Think about that.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pablo Torre: So if all of this was... Which is to say that, of course, when it comes to Kawhi, right? The question is, okay, why did they even do the deal?

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: Why did they even do the deal? And I think we're circling a question for which the only rational explanation is that it wasn't in Aspiration's interest to do it. It was in someone else's.

Mark Cuban: That's where we disagree. None of this has anything to do with Aspiration's best interest. That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. None of it. None of it.

Pablo Torre: No, I'm taking it. I agree it's a terrible deal for Aspiration.

Mark Cuban: No, Joe Sandberg only cares about Joe Sandberg.

Pablo Torre: Yes.

Mark Cuban: Joe Sandberg doesn't...

Pablo Torre: No, no, hold on. So Joe Sandberg benefits if aspiration goes public at a two-plus billion valuation.

Mark Cuban: Of course, of course.

Pablo Torre: But he also needs to survive because cash flow-wise, he is toast. And he knows the company is toast.

Mark Cuban: Yes, he needs to raise money perpetually because the money is coming in and going out. That's what Cherney said, right? He needs to raise money perpetually. And what did he say to Cherney? I'm going to kill you because you don't even know what I have to do to do all this stuff, right?

Pablo Torre: Yes.

Mark Cuban: Right. We're fast-forwarding the timeline, but yes.

Pablo Torre: The whole thing is only about Joe Sandberg and him trying to stay out of jail. It's about Joe Sandberg trying to get aspiration to cash in on a two plus billion dollar SPAC.

Mark Cuban: Right. That's his literally get out of jail free card.

Pablo Torre: That's what I've been writing. And you didn't mention that at all in your first podcast.

Mark Cuban: Episode one, episode one, we did all this. You mentioned the SPAC, you mentioned SPAC, but you didn't tie it back to him just trying to stay out of jail, but it doesn't matter.

Pablo Torre: I disagree. I think ChatGPT may be doing me a little bit of an injustice in terms of the summaries it's presented. I got the transcript somewhere, but anyways.

Mark Cuban: That's what I mean. But look, what I want to say is when they get to April, they sign Kawhi. He's due the first payment at the end of June. And they pay him in July. All of Bomber's money is gone.

Pablo Torre: Yes.

Mark Cuban: Gone, right? Now, you would think if there was a deal that was made between Bomber and anybody, anybody, anybody with half a brain would say, hey, look, we've got this deal with Bomber. For whatever reason, I know what the reason is. You don't have to understand. This is Sandberg talking. You would set aside that money.

Pablo Torre: No question.

Mark Cuban: Okay, there you go.

Pablo Torre: But do you agree that Joe Sandberg is also somebody who maybe isn't as smart as he thought he was?

Mark Cuban: I don't know or care. All I know.

Pablo Torre: But I guess the point is there can be some mixture, as always, of cleverness and incompetence.

Mark Cuban: There can be a lot of mixtures of a lot of things, but you don't have proof one way or the other.

Pablo Torre: Hold on, hold on, hold on. We're going to get there. The question here I asked you was, sir, why did they never announce this deal at all? And so we're now in the weeds and that's okay?

Mark Cuban: You know, because you're trying to make that a big deal to show it's a no-show job, right? But it's just inexplicable.

Pablo Torre: No, it's not relevant. It's inexplicable. It's the most...

Mark Cuban: No, it's very explicable. If you've ever done marketing, if you've ever worked in a company...

Pablo Torre: So why for two years, let's give it two years, did they never mention it?

Mark Cuban: Because they changed business and they brought in a new CEO. April, May, June, July. October by October. October, November, December. So I gave you the first hit, right? First of all...

Pablo Torre: I'm just saying that's a year.

Mark Cuban: So let's walk through it. Let's walk through it, right? Rule number one of marketing. If you're making one big announcement, you don't step on it with another announcement.

Pablo Torre: How many months does it take for a bit of breathing room?

Mark Cuban: You find out, right? By the time...

Pablo Torre: Is it one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, but wait, there's more.

Mark Cuban: It's not about that. You're trying to game it, but it's not like that. That's a lot of months.

Pablo Torre: No, no, because April 30th, right? I'm sorry, March 30th, when they signed and announced the Red Sox deal. Big deal, right?

Mark Cuban: Sure.

Pablo Torre: So you don't step on that. Okay, so the question is how many months? By the time they got to, I'm trying to think when they actually changed their business model, but it was prior October because that's when they let Cherney go and that's when they brought in Olivia, right?

Pablo Torre: But they had already— Or the Albrecht, the follow-up CEO. Yeah, the numbers were already there, as you saw in the S4, that they were making their money in business to business. They were getting killed, destroyed, had no upside whatsoever on their consumer business.

Mark Cuban: So it wouldn't be the first time in the history of marketing where you signed somebody to do something, pivoted in your business, and decided not to use it.

Pablo Torre: I want to add a little bit of texture, because they signed him to a deal, again, that is four times larger than everyone else combined. You keep going to that as if it's a reflection of some insidious effort. But it's not relevant at all.

Mark Cuban: Let me ask you a basic question. You keep using it, but it not relevant at all.

Pablo Torre: Because of course it is, Mark.

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: Because it speaks to why exactly this deal was specifically the way it was constructed. It reflects an intent from someone.

Mark Cuban: No, the businesses were different.

Pablo Torre: So I just got to jump in here to clarify something about the timeline here. Because the business of Aspiration, which Mark was just alluding to, was not meaningfully different in April 2022 when Aspiration signed Kawhi Leonard to this top-secret $28 million no-show endorsement deal from what the business of Aspiration was in September of 2021 when they signed this $300-plus million founding sponsorship deal with the Clippers. In fact, that Clippers deal reflected this pivot that Mark is trying to say happened after the KL2 Aspire LLC deal was brokered. But that deal, the Clipper deal, was the embodiment, actually, of this pivot. It was the thing that was designed to draw attention to it, as Steve Ballmer himself announced at Clippers Media Day in September of 2021, with, you know, a French accent of his own.

[Clip from Steve Ballmer at Clippers Media Day 2021 plays] Steve Ballmer: The piece de resistance as we went through this is when we had a chance to really sit down and meet the folks from Aspiration. Joe Sandberg, who runs Aspiration's here, he'll talk to you a little bit more about their company. We can talk about our partnership. But to have our first founding partner be a company that focuses in on providing services to consumers and businesses to reduce or even go negative on their own carbon footprints was a great thing.

Pablo Torre: We played that clip in episode one, by the way, which I do strongly encourage you to go back and listen to at some point. Not least because we also established in that episode that the top secret, no-show, $28 million endorsement deal with Kawhi Leonard was also about this pivot to carbon offsets as one particular deliverable in this very deliberately structured contract that we had read indicated that Leonard has to be available and participate with company to create an annual program in support of the company's reforestation program. Oh, this one's good. "With a tie to calculating Leonard's carbon footprint given his annual schedule events and travel." Boy, I'd love to see that.

Mark Cuban: Well, it's hard because it didn't happen.

Pablo Torre: Oh. I thought you were going to say that was the one thing he did do.

[Pablo takes a breath]

Pablo Torre: And so if you want even more of our analysis of Aspiration's carbon offsets business with the Clippers, and even more also on the flow of funds from Steve Ballmer to Aspiration, which was largely inspired by our first conversation on this show with Mark Cuban... that stuff happens to be in part four of this series, just in case you're curious. But I do want to return us now to the argument that I was in the middle of having with our special guest.

Mark Cuban: When a business is thinking it's going to be profitable and it's operating like a normal business, it's one thing. And then when the owner, the main guy, goes and borrows money again fraudulently and all of a sudden their business is no longer a good operating business...

Pablo Torre: Let's say you didn't like— you had immediate buyer's remorse and you were like, whoa, we just paid this guy four times more than the biggest stars in Hollywood combined. And we don't want to use him anymore. Shouldn't you at least say we did it so you get something?

Mark Cuban: No, because then you look like a moron. I mean, I think— and fear that that might have happened anyway.

Pablo Torre: Well, yeah, but they're trying to survive, right? You don't announce that you signed a guy. And by the way, they ended up paying him less than they paid those celebrities.

Mark Cuban: How do you know that?

Pablo Torre: Because he only was paid twice. That I have reported so far.

Mark Cuban: No, that's anywhere. If you go back on the number. Do you have sources that tell you that he got paid more than what I reported? At most, so let's just do the math.

Pablo Torre: Well, the bankruptcy filing says he's owed $7 million.

Mark Cuban: Right.

Pablo Torre: The deal was 28.

Mark Cuban: Right. And so somewhere between the three and a half that I've reported in 2022, and that is a big gulf.

Pablo Torre: No.

Mark Cuban: Right. So what happens is the 28 million, the day that they go bankrupt, anything past that, or the day they file.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, so wipe off the last year. So that's 21.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: So that's seven.

Mark Cuban: Right. So that's down to 14, right, if there wasn't any other conversation or anything. So at most—

Pablo Torre: Do you have information that there was conversation about that? About the remaining dollars?

Mark Cuban: No. I just don't think we can definitively say, based on the evidence, that he got paid only $3.5 million. But think of it this way, right? 16 potential payments. You only knew about two of them. And one of them, from your first reporting, right, you had tied specifically to Ballmer. But we know Ballmer's money was all gone by the time the agreement was even signed. So you went out and made this assertion about Ballmer without knowing that the money wasn't even available.

Pablo Torre: We had seven sources.

Mark Cuban: But I want to go past that because you don't believe the sources.

Pablo Torre: But the seven sources was the guy with the whatever modulated voice. One of the finance department employees who was interviewed by the federal government who's pointing me to documents that have been verified by every single other source and documentation.

Mark Cuban: All the means he works in the accounts payable department or in the finance department. I think it's easy to dismiss the sources and I can't possibly convince you otherwise. That's okay. But it's not even just about dismissing. We agree, disagree. It's just not enough. You just shit on a guy's reputation by having some guy in the AP department who's tried to tie it.

Pablo Torre: Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. Your guy said, your guy said, everybody knew, it was common knowledge that this was circumventional to sour. In the department in which they had to make payments to Kawhi Leonard that no one could explain, there was talk about—

Mark Cuban: It's the accounts payable department. Mark, you don't know who these people are, and I wish you would stop. It's just— we can speculate. I can tell by the form that you showed in your first podcast.

Pablo Torre: We have over 3,000 pages of documents. There are a lot of forms.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but what you showed, what you showed was just an accounts payable ledger. That's all.

Pablo Torre: We have documents that we can get to, and I want to. I see a folder. You see a folder. I want to get to the folder, Mark. You keep on preventing me from getting to the folder.

[Ad break for Fast Growing Trees, SimpliSafe, and HIMS]

Pablo Torre: Have you talked to Steve Ballmer about this?

Mark Cuban: The first piece of paper in this is something that people have pointed out to me a lot. And I just want to make sure that because you're saying you're not just shilling for Steve Ballmer here, that you are not, in fact, this meme.

Pablo Torre: Oh, you busted me. Yes, that's me. Are you familiar with this meme?

Mark Cuban: No, I'm not.

Pablo Torre: You're familiar with Apu from The Simpsons jumping in front of another person behind a...

Mark Cuban: No, I only know the episode that I did. And it says billionaires jumping in front of other billionaires. I only know the episode I deal with. I'm the criminal with the gun.

Pablo Torre: You got to watch in season 20, the episode with the billionaire's handshake.

[Clip from The Simpsons plays] Voice: Oh yeah, three points, big three and a big D for the big C. Mark Cuban, that's me. Who is that man? And why isn't his enthusiasm being punished? Second Voice: That's Mark Cuban, sir. He's the most flamboyant owner in the league.

Pablo Torre: Do you think the Clippers knew that Kawhi had this deal with Aspiration?

Mark Cuban: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't the first deal that he signed with a Clipper sponsor, so I don't know.

Pablo Torre: Right. The Clippers knew about the previous one, the Honey Deal, which was the Jersey patch.

Mark Cuban: Mm-hmm.

Pablo Torre: Why would they not know about this one?

Mark Cuban: I don't know one way or the other. Would you have known if you were the owner of a team and your most important player signed a deal with the... Not necessarily, but probably. Probably, yeah. Possibly. I think at some point, right, if you could just speculate, like when would they have known at the very least? That they had a deal?

Pablo Torre: I don't know. I mean, maybe the CEO would know before Ballmer would know.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, before Ballmer would know. Because that's typically how I would find out. I wouldn't get a list of deals or anything like that.

Pablo Torre: Sure.

Mark Cuban: I would find out when someone said, hey, you know, would you say hi and take a picture with so-and-so? We signed a deal with them. That's typically what I would know. Now, the bigger sponsor with Aspiration, I would know about, obviously.

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: Right.

Pablo Torre: So, we agree on that, I think.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: So, Steve Ballmer says that he introduced, of course, Kawhi's camp to Aspiration. The introduction got made, and then they were off to the races on their own. So at some point, the introduction is made, and then the question is, when does the curiosity arise? I wonder what happened to that.

Mark Cuban: Never.

Pablo Torre: Never what?

Mark Cuban: I've had sponsors that worked with us. Hey, can you connect me to Dirk's guide, to Lucas people?

Pablo Torre: But you said for the founding sponsor of this level, a little bit.

Mark Cuban: No, that's for me on a $300 million deal, I'm knowing about it. Like when we did Chime, I know about it.

Pablo Torre: Of course.

Mark Cuban: But anything that came across, like I couldn't tell you like Luka, Luka's people would, you know, talk about certain deals.

Pablo Torre: So you think it's possible that Luka had a side deal with Chime and you wouldn't know about it?

Mark Cuban: Yeah, I would have no idea. I wouldn't care.

Pablo Torre: You wouldn't care?

Mark Cuban: No. Why would I?

Pablo Torre: What if you were aware that the camp of the guy who signed the deal had a history of allegedly asking for things that the rules don't allow?

Mark Cuban: I don't care. I mean, I'm not involved in it at all.

Pablo Torre: You don't care about that?

Mark Cuban: I'm not involved in it at all.

Pablo Torre: Well, I know that that's the position. But the question is personally, in terms of just being honest, wouldn't you have curiosity? I wonder if that deal is going to help me or potentially humiliate me publicly.

Mark Cuban: The only time I really put inserted myself in those types of situations was if I thought it was a product that was not good for Mavs fans. And our people would come to me and say, hey, we think you might have questions about this. You know, it's a supplement deal or it's, you know, a sports drink deal that's doing something funky. That's the only time I'd get involved. And the salesperson would say, is it okay for us to go after these guys? Do I follow up with that afterwards? No, we have a CEO who does all that stuff.

Pablo Torre: I'm curious, based on that, what you think about how Lawrence Frank, the Clippers president of basketball operations, answered this line of yes or no questions at Media Day.

[Clip from Clippers Media Day plays] Reporter: Has Dennis Robertson, Kawhi's uncle, ever asked for any extra benefits that wouldn't be allowable under the NBA salary cap directly to you? There's been a lot coming out about his asks. Lawrence Frank: Yeah, look, Dennis knows the rules. Kawhi knows the rules. Mitch Frankel knows the rules. And we know the rules. Reporter: Is that a yes or a no? Lawrence Frank: Yes, we all know the rules.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, I mean, he's doing what he's supposed to do, right?

Mark Cuban: Look, have I ever been asked for shit that's not legit? Yeah, of course. You know, do I do it? No, right? That's just the rule. But in terms of the business deals, that's why you have a CEO. Sint Marshall did 99% of the Chime deal.

Pablo Torre: Oh, sure. Look, and I think there are obviously, the reason the president of Basketball Ops has asked that is because, of course, it's not just Steve alone in an alley. This is a deal that when I said who negotiated this, I'm like, I think there are more than just Joe Sandberg and Steve Ballmer in the conversation.

Mark Cuban: No chance.

Pablo Torre: Yes.

Mark Cuban: No chance. None. Zero. That what? Being involved in the negotiation of a contract for a player.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no. Look, the theory of the case here based on my reporting is Steve Ballmer turns it over to people who get into the actual nuts and bolts of the deals. The reason I bring that up is because, of course, Steve Ballmer said the same thing to ESPN.

[Clip from ESPN interview plays] Reporter: So since 2019, has Dennis Robertson asked you for any other benefits that would be in violation of the league rules? Lawrence Frank: They know the rules. They, meaning Kawhi and his representatives, including his uncle. We know the rules. And if anything's not clear, we remind ourselves what the rules are. And we make absolutely clear we're going to abide by those rules. And they understand them as well. And it's important for them to abide by them, which they have.

Pablo Torre: But can you translate what is not being said here? It means what? What is Lawrence Frank not willing to say that you are personally?

Mark Cuban: All I said was there have been players, not even agents. Normally somebody affiliated with the player, a relative or whatever, that asked for something. No doubt.

Pablo Torre: But to be clear, to be clear.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not saying that, you don't have knowledge that you're admitting to about that. No, I'm just saying, I think nobody, the business people do their business. Right? There's no reason for basketball to get involved. I tell them not to get involved.

Pablo Torre: Of course, but according to the reporting, and this is out of Toronto and the Lakers, of course, Kawhi's camp was explicitly asking for things.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but then go back to the honey deal. No-show deals, equity. So why wasn't the honey deal a no-show deal? Because that was, by the way, they signed some deals that passed muster. The reason it wasn't a no-show deal was Kawhi did ads. Kawhi was announced as a honey sponsor.

Pablo Torre: And?

Mark Cuban: What? That's it.

Pablo Torre: But they asked him to do all that. You have no proof that he was even asked to do anything. So just to clarify here, what does it matter if Kawhi was asked by Aspiration to do anything? It's everything, right? But whose side does it help if they never asked? Just out of curiosity.

Mark Cuban: It doesn't help either side. It's a failure on the part of his aspiration. That's all.

Pablo Torre: Certainly. But that's it. But why wouldn't— So there are multiple deals that Kawhi did that— He did stuff. And they announced it. This is why I keep on asking the beginning of the episode what the question is. Why was this one a deal where it was never announced and he never did anything?

Mark Cuban: Because Aspiration is a fucked up company.

Pablo Torre: Okay, great.

Mark Cuban: And they were turning over people left and right.

Pablo Torre: I agree to agree on that. And their founder, the money guy, the guy who kept on bringing in the money, was a huge Clippers fan. He sat front row all the time.

Mark Cuban: Oh, yeah.

Pablo Torre: He would bring his girlfriend. He would do all this stuff. He would get all the accoutrements.

Mark Cuban: Is that French?

Pablo Torre: Well, he and Steve.

Mark Cuban: Is that the right French word? That's a great French. And there is a certain je ne sais quoi about the dynamic between Steve and Joe.

Pablo Torre: It's not a no, put aside Steve. It has nothing to do with Steve. Okay, so I want to sort of advance the ball here a bit because Aspiration, which is a team sponsor and a company that Ballmer personally invested $50 million into, that established and not in dispute. I want to go back to the team sponsor dynamic because you mentioned Honey and Chime and another one that came up brings us back to the story about how, you know, the Clippers famously ended up keeping DeAndre Jordan, the center that they had, from you. This is 2015, and it turns out, and this is just me going through the time machine here, it turns out that in 2015, you were asked about this in a very funny setting. It was on stage during a talk you gave at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. This is the day after. This is July 9, 2015, and it sounded like this.

[Clip from Mark Cuban's talk at the George W. Bush Presidential Center plays] Interviewer: Now, the sports fans among us, and I know there's a bunch here, I know that he had kind of a tough night last night. So this week on Shark Tank. Without rehashing all the details of the DeAndre Jordan commitment. Mark Cuban: Oh, you had to say his name. Okay. Interviewer: From a leadership standpoint, when you have a setback, when you have a tough day, what do you say to your people? What do you say to the fans? Mark Cuban: The conversations we've had today that it's over. You know, there's nothing you can do about it. You think for a second, is there anything I can change? You think for another second, what have I learned so I can do it differently next time? And then you move forward and say, what are our options? You know, I'm a big believer you have to re-earn your business every single day. You have to look to see whether or not—

Pablo Torre: I just like that you were talking about DeAndre Jordan in front of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who are in the audience at the Presidential Center there in Dallas. Why do you think I'm bringing this up now?

Mark Cuban: No idea.

Pablo Torre: Okay. I'm bringing it up because Steve Ballmer was fined $250,000 for cap circumvention.

Mark Cuban: Right. You mentioned it to me.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, reportedly because his team offered a marketing side deal for DeAndre Jordan through Lexus. Would it be surprising for you to learn that Lexus was not only a team sponsor, but also, like Aspiration, a founding partner of the Intuit Dome?

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: So I'm just saying, like, team sponsors being used in these attempted ways to circumvent the cap against people like you, his competitors, he's done it before.

Mark Cuban: So, but why— you're trying to make it sound like it's something he does all the time.

Pablo Torre: Well, he's been caught doing it in 2015.

Mark Cuban: Right, so why didn't he do it with all the other sponsors? Investigated 2019. How many sponsors do you think they have?

Pablo Torre: Oh, I just think he does it for the ones that he really cares about.

Mark Cuban: Oh, okay. So the big ones, but he didn't care enough about Kawhi with Honey in 2020. Before then, when he could have taken care of all of this.

Pablo Torre: So let me just do some basic math here, because you raise a really good question about like, why this now in the timeline? So the Raptors during 2019 free agency, I'm just looking at the numbers here, right? So they can offer a max of $190 million over five years. The Clippers and the Lakers could only offer $141 million.

Mark Cuban: What was the year? Over four years.

Pablo Torre: 2019.

Mark Cuban: 2019. Just the big Kawhi just won the title free agency. I think that got investigated by the NBA.

Pablo Torre: Right. Because the Raptors and Lakers groups complained. 190, 141. Do you know what 190 minus 141 is?

Mark Cuban: With taxes, no.

Pablo Torre: A very Texan answer. 190 minus 141 is 49.

Mark Cuban: Oh, sure.

Pablo Torre: You're trying to say the numbers match up.

Mark Cuban: No, it's the number. His deal is 48. It's 48.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, but okay. Let's just go right there, right?

Mark Cuban: Please.

Pablo Torre: So when you did episode one, you thought it was 28. You didn't know it was 48, right?

Mark Cuban: I didn't have the evidence that I have now for the $20 million.

Pablo Torre: Right, right, right, right.

Mark Cuban: So now you're backtracking to try to make those numbers fill, right? But that's not the point.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no. The point is when you went in episode one and you thought it was $28 million. It is on the endorsement deal $28 million.

Mark Cuban: Okay, that's not where I'm going, right? You got the paperwork, yeah.

Pablo Torre: Right, you got the paperwork, right? So it's $28 million. And you tied the $50 million from Ballmer to say, this is what was being used to pay the 28, correct?

Mark Cuban: I was saying Ballmer put in 50.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: Kawhi was getting out 28. So I don't know the French word. So there is whatever, right? Then one must be connected to the other.

Pablo Torre: No, I'm saying that based on the—

Mark Cuban: Otherwise, what was the whole point of the episode?

Pablo Torre: Well, the whole point of the episode is that we connected—

Mark Cuban: If Ballmer wasn't paying that 50 million in order to pay Kawhi, what's the point of the episode?

Pablo Torre: I think we just got to remember that we had so much more evidence in the episode.

Mark Cuban: But you made the point, did you not?

Pablo Torre: I'm trying to simplify it down in the conversation that we're having now. I'm just going back to episode one when all this started. In episode one, it was 28. I had not mentioned the 20.

Mark Cuban: Because you didn't know about it at the time.

Pablo Torre: I could not report it, absolutely. But the point being that now we have the proof. It was—

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, no, no, not the point.

Pablo Torre: Right, the point is—

Mark Cuban: I'm saying 49 to 48. Is that a coincidence to you? But is it yes or no? Is it a coincidence?

Pablo Torre: Yes. It is. Yes.

Mark Cuban: That's a hell of a... Because you do... No one looks at the gross delta as the number when it comes to choosing between one team versus another if it's based off of economics. Nobody. So Texas teams know, Florida teams know, that you have... Oklahoma teams know, you have a state tax advantage. I get the difference that these are not, of course, what the take-home pay is going to be, depending on where your team is based. Is that what matters? Of course it does. But I'm saying, in terms of how this got roughed out.

Pablo Torre: I just am pointing to the question of there was a difference of 49. The deal was very coincidentally 48. And it was also in the way that Kawhi's camp was asking. No-show deals.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're putting words in their mouth.

Pablo Torre: That's according to the reporting from Toronto Star.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, that's in Toronto. That has nothing to do with LA.

Pablo Torre: But Kawhi's camp asked the Raptors that in 2019. The Raptors were like, we're not doing that. He asked that of the Lakers, reportedly. Lakers were like, we're not doing that. And in 2021, guess what happens? $48 million, a million off from the 49 in exactly that fashion.

Mark Cuban: It's okay. Let's segregate two different things here. Like I said, when I first came on, I don't care if Steve is guilty or not, right? It's better for the Mavericks if he is, right? My issue is when you came out with podcast one, you had nothing.

Pablo Torre: That's not true.

Mark Cuban: It's very true.

Pablo Torre: That's not true.

Mark Cuban: And you tied the things you tried to get, the things you tried to tie together.

Pablo Torre: The number of sources. 3,000 pages of documents.

Mark Cuban: Can sources be wrong? 100%. Can they be misinterpreted? Can they be misinterpreted?

Pablo Torre: But they've been proven right for now six episodes.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, no, no. You make them appear to be right. There have been zero factual corrections.

Pablo Torre: Let's just go back to what caught my attention. Even for you, you're not even factually correcting me. You're just bringing out other stuff.

Mark Cuban: No, no. I am factually correcting you because you tied specifically the $50 million investment. $50 million in. To $28 million. $28 million out. Right. But they weren't tied at all. They were not connected in the least bit.

Pablo Torre: Of course they were.

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: I had seven sources saying this was for salary cap circumvention. That is what...

Mark Cuban: Then why was the money not paid to him?

Pablo Torre: Because it was a company run by a clever but ultimately criminal co-founder.

Mark Cuban: Oh, so when it comes to supporting your facts, you can use the fact that he's a criminal.

Pablo Torre: I've been using that from the start. It's the facts.

Mark Cuban: No, but it's not. You're using it only to support.

Pablo Torre: It's just reality. I'm merely describing reality.

Mark Cuban: No, your first podcast was very clear. We have to agree to disagree, I think, on what the first podcast was.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no. Let me finish.

Mark Cuban: But I'm happy to—

Pablo Torre: Let me just finish and tell me if I'm wrong, right? The first podcast said $50 million which was earmarked specifically for the $28 million of quiet—

Mark Cuban: Yes or no? Earmarked specifically?

Pablo Torre: No. I said 28 out.

Mark Cuban: Right. So isn't that saying earmark? I mean look Mark, I can refer you generally speaking out of journalistic caution to the definition of how one does provide a pass-through.

Pablo Torre: Oh, because it's fungible now.

Mark Cuban: But why would you? So the point is, you're coming out with this thing that's really, you know, just destroying a man's credibility and integrity. It's reporting based on—

Pablo Torre: No, no, no, no, no. You knew what was at stake for Ballmer. You knew what was—

Mark Cuban: 100%. We made it very clear.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: But you said 50 in, 28 out. Yes. That looks like you're tying. In a deal that never got announced.

Pablo Torre: Of course.

Mark Cuban: Put aside. The dots were connected by the seven sources that I have. You, if the sources. I'm just saying. We can. Why was the money not. We have to agree to disagree that the sources are meaningful. Even a criminal, criminal would know. Pay the 50. If you're getting the 50 to keep this guy happy for a circumvention that he needs for his business, make sure he gets paid on time at least the first time.

Pablo Torre: Well, I just want to make clear that like what I am reporting is that Steve Ballmer did not know at the outset that he was going to get victimized by Joe Sandberg.

Mark Cuban: No, of course, that's not the point. We agree on that. That's not the point. The point is if... The question is, why was it that the payments were late? Right? Or not... Or not be made. Or not prepaid. Or not prepaid. Or not done something. And the carbon credit stuff we did in the episode before.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, but you didn't do the margin dollars. But anyways, it's okay. I want to get to this thing, okay?

Pablo Torre: Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark.

Mark Cuban: Pablo, Pablo, Pablo. I am enjoying this, by the way.

Pablo Torre: Me too. Okay, good.

Mark Cuban: The thing that I'm trying to get to here, though, is that Aspiration truly was, like, horrifically run. Financially, they were toast. And I want to show you actually just, like, so this other document in here, you know so much more about business and forms than me. So this is a series of disclosures that Aspiration had to present to potential investors. And it lists a number of very real problems.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, you talked about this before. If you can just like... Yeah, this is all in Schedule 310.

Pablo Torre: Yeah. So the company is in default, is what it says on the first page.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, this is all the s*** that they're falsing. What does default mean? Just for people who don't know what that means. Seriously. I'll let you define it.

Pablo Torre: Okay, it means they're broke.

Mark Cuban: KPMG... Well, it doesn't mean they're broke, right? It just means they're late and there's a good chance that they won't be able to...

Pablo Torre: That's what I asked.

Mark Cuban: Broke ass is the more colloquial...

Pablo Torre: So like, let's go... But here's a good example of what you were trying to convey.

Mark Cuban: No, I just want to list what it is.

Pablo Torre: Right, but here's what it is. Pick whatever you want. So KPMG resigned as the company's independent auditor.

Mark Cuban: So while on one hand, that's a red flag, right?

Pablo Torre: Yeah, the independent auditor was like, we can't do this. But they didn't give why.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, they didn't say why, right? And that's critically-

Pablo Torre: Why do you think in retrospect, they might have done that?

Mark Cuban: Yeah, because they couldn't, because Joe Samberg was doing all these round-trip deals and they couldn't-

Pablo Torre: Because the company was in default and otherwise facing litigation and probes by the government. They couldn't confirm all the-

Mark Cuban: It was fishy. It was all fishy. Whatever reasons they had. Whatever reasons KPMG had. But the more important thing is, from an investor standpoint, they just changed auditors.

Pablo Torre: Okay, but it resigned. It didn't... Again. They didn't change it. They resigned for... They lost their independent auditor. They didn't give a reason. So the company's in default. KPMG resigned as the company's independent auditor. The next page, schedule 3.11. Let's go to the company's default, but let's say what it is. Inherit notes. Inherit ends up being the company that acquired them after it was all said and done. Inherit was the senior lender.

Mark Cuban: Right.

Pablo Torre: Mark's reading. It's pretty bad, man. This doesn't really say anything. The company's in default, I believe. There's some stuff on here. That's pretty good.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, I read this in the SEC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The company is in default.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, so, look, I get your point then. Why would somebody invest in a company that shows you this? So, litigation, 8.7 million in damages alleged by Nanobank, which was... There must be some ancillary thing, right? Claims of breach of loan, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and true dealing. But you have to ask the same question. FinRES conducting five inquiries. Right. SEC is conducting a review of the ESG representations. It's just-

Mark Cuban: What was the date on these?

Pablo Torre: Well, so let me ask you this because-

Mark Cuban: What was the date? Because it's important.

Pablo Torre: No, it's in there. It's in there. If you were pitched to invest in this company at a $2 billion plus valuation, as described-

Mark Cuban: No, it wasn't. First of all, the investment wasn't at a $2 billion valuation. So there's the-

Pablo Torre: This one, this one, I'm saying, hypothetically, if you're presented with this at a $2 billion plus valuation-

Mark Cuban: It wasn't a $2 billion valuation. You're pivoting.

Pablo Torre: So here, if I was selling it on Shark Tank, right?

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: I would say, look, we were Aspiration Bank and we screwed up. We were in the consumer business and we screwed up. We even paid money to endorsers that we didn't even use. That's how screwed up we were. But now I'm going to show you the P&L for our B2B business where we're selling carbon credits, higher margin, bigger deals, right? Which are the things that they- Regime change, new CEO, getting rid of the old execs. Right. So now let me show you a pro forma based off of just this business and excluding all the other business.

Mark Cuban: Sure. The $2.3 billion number is very misleading because that's only realized if it goes public with the SPAC.

Pablo Torre: Exactly.

Mark Cuban: Right? And if it doesn't go public, which is all about, all Cherney cares about, right? That's why, not Cherney, Sandberg cares about. That's why he's lying.

Pablo Torre: They do, but Cherney's gone in a minute.

Mark Cuban: Yes.

Pablo Torre: Right? So the SPAC isn't going to happen, right? Like, Joe knows it's not going to happen unless he pulls it around.

Mark Cuban: Well, at a certain point, it does. But in this case, in this timeline, it's absolutely still. You're right. No, the goal is still, right? Because it's 21. Yeah, it's 21 is still. But the investment that they're making at that point in time isn't at the valuation of 2.3 until it converts. That was the point you missed before in your podcast.

Pablo Torre: Okay.

Mark Cuban: So let me explain to you, right?

Pablo Torre: Yes.

Mark Cuban: You're buying it lower, right? And you're getting a price. They had rolling closes all the time. That's why they would have a C1, C2, C4, C, you know, series close, right? And that's why it was like confusing that Balmer put in in September and Dennis Wong put in in December of 22. And then Balmer puts in in March 23 because they had these things called rolling closes, right? So at that point, so there's basically two businesses here, two businesses that are being sold, Shark Tank approach, right? The two businesses are at the beginning, at this point in time when everybody thinks the Aspiration Bank itself is going to happen and there's this back merger going to happen. You're only going to invest if it's considerably lower than the $2.3 billion.

Pablo Torre: I see what you're saying. Because you see that as the grand prize. But this thing, the reason I'm jumping in here is because this presentation, these disclosures were made to outside investors, 19 of them, according to court documents, who heard this pitch like you and said, no, no, no.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: You would say to this series of disclosures, no thanks.

Mark Cuban: No, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I don't know what the pitch is. Companies pivot every day.

Pablo Torre: So let me put this in the timeline specifically because this was the raise in Q4 of 2022.

Mark Cuban: Mm-hmm.

Pablo Torre: And so all that stuff is disclosed. So what happened in October of 2022? A lot of bad shit for Aspiration, man.

Mark Cuban: No, a lot of good shit for Aspiration. A lot of good stuff.

Pablo Torre: What was good about a company going into default that was losing its entire executive structure as employees were saying, are we going to make payroll ever?

Mark Cuban: They went to Katana. Katana. Katana. Right. Katana. So December 22, they changed and they were able to show a P&L based only off their B2B. They did, again, the execs that were pitching.

Pablo Torre: But Mark, the reason why they were pivoting was because the company as it existed was, of course, pardon my French, totally f***ed. And so they were figuring out, okay.

Mark Cuban: No. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, I'm sorry. Now you're a big Aspiration fan.

Pablo Torre: No.

Mark Cuban: You know, the more I got to know about Katana, the more I liked it. Katona, right? The more I liked it. Right? So I could see.

Pablo Torre: You liked? Okay. Very good.

Mark Cuban: Because when you look, the base numbers going back to September 30th of 2021 show their B2B business where they didn't waste all that money on marketing.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: Had a chance. Had a chance. So for that reason, you're in. I at least would look at it, right?

Pablo Torre: Okay. But not that I would invest in that business, but it's not unheard of for a company to pivot to a new business, have multiple lines of business. It's in fact the only thing left for this company to do is pivot.

Mark Cuban: Of course, but that's every company.

Pablo Torre: But the reason I'm saying it is that because 19 outside investors looked at this and said, as aforementioned, hell no.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but-

Pablo Torre: And so the question I have now is since-

Mark Cuban: You know how many people said no to Airbnb?

Pablo Torre: Okay, but I guess-

Mark Cuban: Everybody, Federal Express, everybody. Of course, of course. That's, of course, an insane comparison to Aspiration, which went bankrupt and is embroiled in lots of fraud and humiliation. Airbnb, FedEx, and so forth.

Pablo Torre: But in this case, the question I have is just, since the first podcast, which you hated, came out on September 3rd, have you communicated at all with the vice chairman of the Clippers, Dennis Wong?

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: Okay. Dennis Wong is Steve Ballmer's close friend and college roommate, the one and only co-owner that Ballmer trusted of equity in the team. He also wound up being the only person who did not have money in Aspiration who saw these disclosures that I presented to you.

Mark Cuban: Not the only person. Not the only person.

Pablo Torre: The only person who had never put in money into Aspiration before.

Mark Cuban: Oh, they put in money in Aspiration before. And said, you know what? I want a piece of this. This is the signature page for Dennis Wong that's attached to the same disclosures that I just handed you. That's what he saw. What you just saw is what he saw. But to your point, right? Now, let's think this through. Please.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: There were other investors. Because we got to see the pictures.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, they were all previously. The point is, right, the point is, those other two investors that invested around the same time as Dennis Wong, right, they, best I can remember, so they also said, you know what? I like what I'm seeing in this pivot. But I do need to just take a quick beat here to clarify something that we'd reported previously on the show. When it comes to the identities of the only other investors, the two other entities who gave Aspiration money in December 2022 in that same series C5 round, having been presented with that same exact set of disclosures in all of their bleakness as Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong. Because one of those two investors was Aspiration board member Ibrahim Al-Husseini, the same guy who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in March 2025, the same guy who was the alleged co-conspirator of Aspiration co-founder Joe Sandberg. And the other investor was, yes, Joe Sandberg himself, who of course pleaded guilty to wire fraud in August of 2025. So the question I have is, those disclosures are the things that Dennis Wong signed off on. And Aspirations quarterly payment to Kawhi Leonard was at this point more than two months late. Dennis Wong put in $1.99 million. He acquired 0.072% of the company in default, facing those problems as aforementioned. Why do you think he put in that little money for that little equity?

Mark Cuban: Maybe to make his daughter happy, his daughter worked there, right? Maybe to keep him alive, maybe to give him one more month. Maybe they said-

Pablo Torre: You think that I would save the balance sheets of Aspiration, 2 million?

Mark Cuban: And by the way, lots of people came in and out of the company. I'm not here to interrogate them at the moment. So the people who went back to work there.

Pablo Torre: But why would Dennis Wong put in specifically that little amount of money after 300 million had already been raised the year before?

Mark Cuban: Because maybe that was a bridge loan. 0.02. Maybe it was a bridge amount. Maybe they said, you know what? We got to make this one payroll, right? And we have more money coming in. We have more money coming in after that. Is it possible? Which turned out to be true. I get asked all the time.

Pablo Torre: But this wasn't a loan. This was an investment.

Mark Cuban: Okay, whatever it was, a bridge investment.

Pablo Torre: It was an actual purchase agreement. It was a Series C5 preferred stock purchase agreement.

Mark Cuban: Right. I can't tell you how often I hear, right? Hey, we're close. Yeah. We have this other money coming in, which turned out to be true, right? Because they ended up raising $68 million. Not kind of.

Pablo Torre: But the company is, just spoiler alert, the company is f***ed.

Mark Cuban: Well, no. This is our, we're getting to relive decisions with the benefit of hindsight, I admit. Joe Samberg is f***ed. Joe Samberg is f***ed.

Pablo Torre: Mark, the company literally is in default at the time that this payment is made. Joe Samberg is the one. And Aspiration needs to pivot to a totally different business.

Mark Cuban: That's what companies do, Pablo.

Pablo Torre: But that is also a synonym for being f***ed. They filed for bankruptcy. So, okay. Why would a new CEO take the job of CEO?

Mark Cuban: That's a great question for Olivia Albrecht. Great question.

Pablo Torre: Right. Why does she stay there for an extended period of time? But I want to ask about Dennis Long. I don't care about Olivia at the moment.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, we do care about Olivia.

Pablo Torre: No, I get, but lots of people, lots of people either fell for or went eyes wide open in for a f***ed scenario as described. But no, but see, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, so you-

Mark Cuban: Our mutual friend has been very clear that he didn't know that they were-

Pablo Torre: He's not my friend. He is a source and I appreciate the distinction.

Mark Cuban: Right.

Pablo Torre: But the point being, and I want to leave him to the side for a second, because what Dennis Wong decided to do nine days before KL2 Aspire LLC finally, after months of delay, got paid 1.75, are you suggesting that is another coincidence?

Mark Cuban: Look, there were 16 contractual payments. You have one payment that was in proximity to an investment. The week before, after months of delay.

Pablo Torre: After months of delay.

Mark Cuban: I asked you the question, why would he put in 1.99 specifically? And your only response was, Maybe he wanted to save the company, which doesn't matter. Maybe he wanted to make his daughter happy. By the way, his daughter, according to people who worked with her, quote, she 100% knew that the company was a sinking ship, end quote.

Pablo Torre: Kawhi got paid 1.75 the day they laid off 20% of the staff.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, that's because they were pivoting. Of course, you're going to lay off staff. Look, you're trying to put everything in. Joe Sandberg is his own unique entity. Aspiration, the people doing the work, the people that came every day believing.

Pablo Torre: Oh, there are some good people.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, they believed in the mission. Those are my sources for the record.

Pablo Torre: And that's great. But they had no idea or understanding of why Joe Sandberg did what he did. What they did, though, was see wire-in and wire-out knowledge in the finance department. Like, this is Dennis Wong's wire-in. This is KL2's wire-out the week before. This is bookkeeping. It's bookkeeping. It's literally the flow of funds. The question I have, though.

Mark Cuban: Let me say this again, Pablo.

Pablo Torre: No, I hear you. 16 payments.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: 16 contracts. But why this one?

Mark Cuban: 16 contractual payments.

Pablo Torre: But why this one, though? I want to focus on—

Mark Cuban: You have one payment.

Pablo Torre: But why is this one the one that Dennis Wong put in money nine days before to a degree that is inexplicable to everybody?

Mark Cuban: Look, any payment that's going to be made is going to be within some X number of days.

Pablo Torre: This was months late, Mark.

Mark Cuban: What's that?

Pablo Torre: This payment to Kawhi was months late.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, I don't know. And nine days later, it got paid magically. Who benefits the most from that payment? Anyone who wants Kawhi to finally get paid. Uncle Dennis. Kawhi's camp. The Clippers are the two parties that I am constantly trying to link the logic here in your brain. As someone who's had companies that have done well and poorly for a period and fortunately turned around, right, when you have a vendor that is calling you all the time, right, the squeaky wheel moves to the top.

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: It crossed your mind that the guy was just so annoying.

Pablo Torre: But Mark, yes, but lots of people weren't getting paid. Lots of clients were getting screwed, right? And they were all calling. And the question is, why did this guy get prioritized?

Mark Cuban: Because maybe he was the squeakiest wheel. Maybe because Joe Sandberg's a Clippers fan. Maybe because Joe Sandberg would see Kawhi at games that he would go to sitting on the front row or right on the court, wherever. I don't know exactly where he was sitting, right? And maybe he already had a relationship with Kawhi and he would be embarrassed next time because maybe Kawhi would say something. Uncle Dennis was going to those games. Maybe Uncle Dennis was saying something specifically to Joe Sandberg. And that guy is saying, okay, we got to pay this guy. You know, I'm the one raising money. I got more money coming in.

Pablo Torre: It's just a very funny thing for the number one priority, according to my sources here, to be pay the guy doing nothing for us in a deal we've never announced.

Mark Cuban: Because Joe Sandberg, he's driving everything. He's the one raising all the money. He who raises money gets control.

Pablo Torre: But the question is, what does he benefit from in terms of this deal existing. And my theory has been consistent throughout, which is that he benefits because he preserves a relationship with Steve Ballmer in which his obligation-

Mark Cuban: So the more I learned.

Pablo Torre: So when I did the first podcast, I didn't really know all that much about Joe. So it was interesting. And thank you, Deep Research, right?

Mark Cuban: Oh boy.

Pablo Torre: So it was interesting. Sponsored AI reads. This is a guy. What else was on Joe Sandberg's plate? What else was he doing? Please educate me.

Mark Cuban: He was actively involved in politics.

Pablo Torre: Oh yeah.

Mark Cuban: He was one of the largest-

Pablo Torre: These are the good guys, Mark. These are the Democrat donors, the biggest in California, some have said.

Mark Cuban: Biggest in California, right? He's on the court. He's got a famous girlfriend, right, who's taken to games. She's a media personality.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban: And so his whole spiel, his only, if he collapses, if his image collapses, his whole thing, taking over Blue Apron.

Pablo Torre: Oh, sure.

Mark Cuban: All that stuff collapses.

Pablo Torre: But it's so weird to prioritize the deal that no one knows about amid all the public pressure.

Mark Cuban: No, no, you're missing the whole point then. I'm not doing a good job explaining it.

Pablo Torre: No, no, he has lots of things that he's trying to keep the plate spinning simultaneously.

Mark Cuban: It's not just spinning, it's his whole image.

Pablo Torre: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban: He's selling, that's what criminals do. They sell their image.

Pablo Torre: But I suppose what I'm pointing out to. And if the one guy that you see in a uniform or at that point in time in 21, well, I guess he didn't sign it till 22.

Mark Cuban: Well, he didn't play in 21, 22.

Pablo Torre: Right, no, that's what he said. He didn't sign, and they didn't sign it till 22, right? April. And they signed April of 22, right? And so that season starts in November, right, or October, November.

Mark Cuban: Yes, the 23rd season.

Pablo Torre: Because we're talking about him getting paid in December, right? And so now he's seeing him at the games again. The guys got front. They've got a big suite where they entertain.

Mark Cuban: Yes, they do.

Pablo Torre: Right. They've got the seats on the floor. He's probably seeing him in the tunnel before and or after every game.

Mark Cuban: Sure. And he's seeing Uncle Dennis. And I'm sure Uncle Dennis is in his ear. And Uncle Dennis is. I fully agree that Joe Sandberg was essential to the story of why Kawhi was getting paid. So let me just ask you a question. If you're Joe Sandberg, which is more impactful to your life, paying Kawhi Leonard or paying some random vendor?

Pablo Torre: I would say that making sure that I paid Kawhi above and beyond not a random vendor, but my other financial obligations is insane because he's returning zero ROI to my company.

Mark Cuban: No, no. He's literally doing nothing. He's actually just negative spam. You got the wrong hat on, Pablo.

Pablo Torre: I know. I know you're talking about public pressure. And I know you're talking about who's bothering me day to day.

Mark Cuban: I'm concerned if I'm Joe Sandberg about what is the actual health of my company? Why am I prioritizing somebody?

Pablo Torre: No, no, no, no. Mark, the goal is to get to SPAC.

Mark Cuban: Right, right.

Pablo Torre: But okay, by 2022. You need a functional company. He's spiraling in 2022.

Mark Cuban: Absolutely.

Pablo Torre: You got to have a functional company. So paying Kawhi 1.75 isn't going to change functioning. The 1.99 is not going to change whether it's functioning or not.

Mark Cuban: You know what it would do, though? It would keep Uncle Dennis Robertson and Kawhi's camp happy. And it keeps him from bothering Joe Sandberg. Who else might be bothered if there were payments that were late? Joe Sandberg.

Pablo Torre: What about, I don't know, potentially, according to my reporting, the Los Angeles Clippers? Do you think that could be a pressure?

Mark Cuban: I mean, it's possible that Uncle Dennis pressured whoever there. Like Lawrence Frank saying that he heard, or rather, wouldn't say no to whether he heard.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, but you can't, I mean, look, that's ridiculous to even bring that up. Just using his words.

Mark Cuban: Using his words, right? But what do you think he's going to do? You don't think he's got a prepared statement. He knows exactly what he's going to say before he responds. I'm just saying it's a terrible way to convince me that.

Pablo Torre: No, you think he gives a ****? Look, it's a big deal. He just doesn't want to be caught lying. It's not even about that. There's no point. It's obvious. There's no point. Kawhi addressed it. So think about this. Andrew Czerny says it wasn't a no-work deal. You trust that guy? So the three names, Mike Shukra of the General Counsel, Roger Evanizzi, the CMO, and Eric Anderson, who was the CTO, they came out with a signed statement provided to me saying, Andre Czerny, in so many words, is not representing our experience.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but you're proving my point and you don't even know it. You're making my point and you don't even know it. Those three named sources are corroborating what my seven anonymous sources were telling me. And Andre Czerny is on an island as the co-founder and friend of Joe Sandberg, who's now trying to say, according to his public statements, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this was a normal deal. The Kauai thing was a normal deal.

Pablo Torre: No, he said the contract was normal.

Mark Cuban: So look, what I want to get to here.

Pablo Torre: He said, because he even agreed, like, because the Joe Sandberg email to everybody in May of 22, where he said he would provide the stock. He said, he even said in the email. So Andre signed it. Andre signed the contract.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, no, That's not where I'm going.

Pablo Torre: Oh, I know. Joe said that Andre didn't want this either. And all the marketing team didn't want it either. Nobody. Nobody, which was par for the course for Joe Sandberg. He rammed it through. He rammed it through. That 29.5. Did you read the lawsuit, the $29.5 million lawsuit?

Mark Cuban: Mark, I've read so many lawsuits. I bet you have. I bet you have. So you know that that's where you brought up the, they brought up the, not the audit committee, the investment committee, right?

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: The investment committee said no. And then the general counsel said, we want escrow. Guy sends an email to Joe Sandberg, and the next day it's all changed. The next day, that's how he did business.

Pablo Torre: Oh, look, the whole thing here is that he was and is, according to his own guilty plea, a fraudster. The question is why he wanted to do this. And so for me, what I'm getting to is also, as you foreshadowed, March 9, 2023, those same disclosures Dennis Wong saw, Steve Ballmer's like, you know what? I want in $10 million more. And I'll tell you exactly how that goes.

Mark Cuban: Please.

Pablo Torre: Okay. Guy comes to you, Pablo, we've had problems, right? We're pivoting. And I've got my GC coming back, right? I've got people that I think are going to do great. I've got a new CEO. And Pablo, let me just show you this information, these numbers. This business-to-business stuff, this enterprise business is good. The carbon credits business. It is so good.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, carbon credits.

Pablo Torre: We have meta lined up. We have Bank of America lined up. And you know what, Pablo? This is so good. I'm gonna put in 40, you're putting in 10, Steve. I'm gonna go four times that amount and I'm gonna put my own cash in. That's how committed I am to this business.

Mark Cuban: Mark, you're putting in 40 million, whatever it was, dollars in yourself? All right, I can see the numbers. My marginal cost is 10 million, I'm already in 50. So the marginal value of this, And remember, this is March of 23 when he invested. And by that point—

Pablo Torre: This is the same round as Dennis Wong. It was the long round.

Mark Cuban: Right, yeah, which is not unusual. December to March.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, they keep it open.

Mark Cuban: Right, right. And that was also the time when Sandberg was paying interprivate two $5 million payments to extend the outside date, which is the drop-dead date for the SPAC.

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: Right? So he's going—

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban: It wouldn't be the first time.

Pablo Torre: Oh, no, no, no. So the idea that he's doing this, how stupid is he because he reads this?

Mark Cuban: Well, he's so stupid that the guy who he still trusts that he doesn't know is a fraudster is putting in four times as much cash as he is, 20 times as much cash as Dennis Wong.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: That's why he's doing it.

Pablo Torre: Right. So I guess it's worth pointing out, though, that at this point, when you go to December, before Steve Armour made that decision, the SPAC as a premise had basically collapsed.

Mark Cuban: No?

Pablo Torre: No. There was a meeting held in which 90% of the investors were like, we're cashing out.

Mark Cuban: Right. But it still was alive. That's why.

Pablo Torre: But 90% said we're out.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, but you can, it's, or 90%. Yeah, but you can go replenish. You can replenish those investors.

Pablo Torre: Okay, but how big an uphill climb is all of this in context?

Mark Cuban: But you're, in context, you have to look, no, you have to look at what's happening with SPACs at the same point in time.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, and over time, SPACs were revealed to be a giant illusion.

Mark Cuban: Not necessarily, but they weren't doing as well.

Pablo Torre: Right, but they're not doing as well. I mean, yeah.

Mark Cuban: But the point being—

Pablo Torre: No, you're using this as some type of indicator.

Mark Cuban: No, I'm just giving you, like—

Pablo Torre: It's not an indication of anything, Pablo. The company we're talking about is documented to be—

Mark Cuban: Pablo, it's not— Using its appendages, its identity, its employees. So, Pablo's—

Pablo Torre: It's very basic thesis.

Mark Cuban: No. The SPAC as a thesis—

Pablo Torre: Just look at Katona's Twitter feed, right? That's—

Mark Cuban: So, I'm giving you 90% of the investors are cashing out within their private, and you're saying, look at the Twitter feed?

Pablo Torre: Pablo, look. Because they got posts? Because they dare to post?

Mark Cuban: It's a blank check. Which is a fitting sort of metaphor.

Pablo Torre: Yeah. A blank check SPAC, right? And so they have the option to extract their money. They have the option to get more money to put in there in a variety of ways. They have to come up with a total of $400 million at some point. The fact that these investors pulled out could be a thousand different reasons. What data did they have available to them to make a determination if it was a good—

Mark Cuban: What if they saw that everybody who was in the executive structure was fired?

Pablo Torre: They didn have any data.

Mark Cuban: Okay but as an investor would it be concerning to you if they were having massive layoffs and needed to pivot the entire premise of the company?

Pablo Torre: They knew they were pivoting. Because of where they were pivoting. A lot of companies are pivoting. So I guess what they're saying is, hey, you guys are pivoting. This is most generously. You guys are pivoting. We think that we're best-

Mark Cuban: I'm saying, no, no, no. I'm saying you're coming to a conclusion. At exactly the way we began. Pablo, you're coming to the conclusion that these people left, and 90% left because it's obvious that it was a fraud or there's something wrong. They smelled that it was a bad deal.

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: I'm saying you have no idea that that's the case. None. Not even a smidgen about.

Pablo Torre: I have a sense.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, that's all you have.

Pablo Torre: No, no, no. I have a sense based on nine sources who are telling me this is why this is happening. Here is the flow of funds. Here are the 3,000 pages of documents.

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Pablo Torre: Can I just get to the whole thing of like, the Clippers say to us, we saw this deal was fishy in the 22-23 season and we terminated it. For the end of the 23 season. So, you know, how the NBA season works. So Bomber puts in 10 in March. March 9th. So that's pretty close to the end of the season. So when do you think the Clippers would have said, oh no, we could terminate this? I don't know if they told him at all or when they told him or what was going on.

Mark Cuban: I'm sure they mentioned it too. I would say they mentioned it too because you're closing a big deal, right? So, you know, and when did he start the investment process and when did he close it?

Mark Cuban: He closed it in March of 23, right? We don't know when they determined that they were going to shut off the Aspiration. We do know they tweeted happy birthday to Kawhi. In June?

Pablo Torre: Yeah, in June.

Mark Cuban: So, because the NBA dates are June 30th, right?

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when the season officially financially ends.

Mark Cuban: Oh, the league year.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, for the business year. For the CBA. I guess what I'm saying is when Steve Ballmer says, and I believe him on some key level, that he is a victim of Joe Sandberg, and there is no disagreement from me. Yeah, we both agree there. Of course he was. The question is whether he was deceived by a guy he was entrusting to help him deceive the NBA. Right. And you firmly push back, Team Ballmer. So the question I have now is, look, you're a businessman who has said over and over again that we are not immune to mistakes. We are fallible.

Mark Cuban: We are smart. Yeah, I've been scammed. But we've been scammed.

Pablo Torre: Genuinely, this is just me doing a bit of just, I imagine to be that rich and to lose money from someone you trust. That sucks.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, of course. You must feel like, because you're supposed to be the smart guy. You're humiliated.

Pablo Torre: It's not even that. It's because you trusted somebody.

Mark Cuban: Yes. That's it. This is not a fun thing to be through. I was personally defrauded. Remember, they defrauded me. They defrauded many other investors. These were guys who committed fraud. How would I be able? Look, they conned me. You're one of the richest men in America. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys, thinking it was on the up and up, and they conned me.

Pablo Torre: Why did Steve Ballmer donate $1.875 million to the charity Joe Sandberg personally founded and was still the board chair of? And when did he start donating the money? When was the first time he donated?

Mark Cuban: 2018.

Pablo Torre: Okay, so you think that he said, hey, I want to keep you on the line because you have this business and I'm going to use you at some point in the future. And so I'm going to keep on. I don't know why this happened. I'm just wondering, how could you feel like your trust was so broken and yet donate $1.875 million to the dude's charity?

Mark Cuban: How much does his foundation—you looked up his foundation and you looked at the 990s, right? He's the—at last check, one of the 10 richest people in the world. Put that aside. He has a zillion donations to zillions of places.

Pablo Torre: Right. And you really, really think he checked?

Mark Cuban: I would say that if I was embroiled in this giant scheme— No, right? I wouldn't know. Like if one of the guys who scammed me, my foundation was giving them money and we had an overall deal. I would have no clue. It's not worth my time.

Pablo Torre: Mark.

Mark Cuban: It's not worth my time.

Pablo Torre: If you had made a series of donations to Joe Sandberg's charity since 2018, meaning you knew this guy since at least 2017. Do we know that he knew him? He was the chair and it's a tiny charity. So was it specified by Ballmer to give to him or was it the foundation that found it and it aligned with Ballmer's goals?

Mark Cuban: So according to 60 Minutes interviews, of course, Steve and Connie, his wife, go through grant by grant their donations. It really is kind of grant by grant. You can't look back and say, well, people's economic mobility this year was a 2 and next year it's going to be a 2.3. We can't do population level measurement. But place by place, grant by grant, we can do that.

Pablo Torre: Right. It's a list. I get the same shit. It's a list when the Mavs did their foundation. I'd get the list and I'd be like, you guys like this done? Okay, there's a lot of—you have no idea what your money does when the money does bad stuff, but when it does good stuff, no, you know exactly.

Mark Cuban: No, no, no, no. Not true at all. It goes the same way. I don't want to bring up the Simpsons meme again, I apologize.

Pablo Torre: The thing I'm saying is, if you were making a series of escalating investments into a charity and the charity was run by, in this hypothetical, Bernie Madoff, wouldn't you think to yourself, man, that guy, Bernie Madoff, who's been fucking my entire life, that guy, do I want to keep donating to the thing I keep on signing off on? I probably don't, is what I would imagine. And he's like, you know what? I'm back for more. December 24th. What was the name of the charity?

Mark Cuban: Golden State Opportunity Foundation.

Pablo Torre: And he started it. But was he the president that ran it and filled out the applications? When it started, right? When he first started, okay. He's the founder, the sole founder. It is in his image. It is his life story. He is the board chair through this time period. And there's somebody who operates it. He doesn't operate it, right?

Mark Cuban: Over time, he appointed a president.

Pablo Torre: Right.

Mark Cuban: Mark.

Pablo Torre: Right. That person fills out the forms every year.

Mark Cuban: Yeah. And every year they submit it. And unless there's a reason that someone—

Pablo Torre: Joe Sandberg was the only person other than that president who had the title of president according to their 990s. So what?

Mark Cuban: I give money to organizations. It's just federal documents, I guess. So, like, I give money to different organizations, and if somebody goes rogue in one of those organizations, I'm not going to know.

Pablo Torre: If you were donating to a guy as central in your suffering as Joe Sandberg has been presented to be.

Mark Cuban: Okay, no. So here's the presumption that you're making.

Pablo Torre: I'm saying December 24th, the federal government has been announced as investigating. The reason I'm in this chair right now, I'm one of the few people that has experienced all these things. And that's why I love that you're here.

Mark Cuban: Right. Because I've been there, done that, every single piece of these things.

Pablo Torre: Right. Well, I hope not every single piece.

Mark Cuban: Well, no, I've been defrauded.

Pablo Torre: Oh, okay.

Mark Cuban: Right. So, but at the same time, there are charities I've made, I've given money to. And if somebody at that charity, even the founder, even the original chairman goes rogue, the chances of me knowing unless somebody at the foundation catches it are minimal.

Pablo Torre: Even if the guy was the guy who was around your games.

Mark Cuban: Even if the guy was the guy around my games. There could be a guy who sits two seats down from me at the Mavs games. $300 million partnership. Signage all over the building that you built with your bare hands. This founding sponsor.

Pablo Torre: Yes, because. It's not any guy. It's the guy.

Mark Cuban: No, you're trying. That's right. That's the whole, that's what you do, Pablo. You're trying to put all this on, you know, if there's a connection, the connection—

Pablo Torre: I'm trying to hold adults accountable for the decisions they make that are documented. Look, if the guy decided to give to the charity, you're presuming now he's saying, oh, this guy fucked me. Somebody go look up to make sure that I'm not involved with him anywhere, any shape. If you say that you were victimized, that your trust was broken, humiliated, this was a guy that you did not trust, that you only met in this one way, and then he—

Mark Cuban: He probably has no idea that his charity is giving money to Sandberg's charity. Probably has zero idea.

Pablo Torre: It's his public commentary about how they'd make decisions about donations that says otherwise.

Mark Cuban: Right, so no, no, no, it does not. No, it does not. They go grant by grant. How much time do you think that would take?

Pablo Torre: I assume that if you are sincerely somebody who cares about charity as they present themselves to be, you would have some awareness that this person who is in business with you so many different ways and has been embroiled in this same year, by the way. It's not like any year. It's the same year when the feds—

Mark Cuban: No, you're presuming. You're presuming. No, no, no, no. This is Bloomberg in January reports that the federal government is investigating. Let's go back to Michael. Intuit Dome is the picture of the article. Let's just say Pablo gives to 20 charities, okay? Do you go back and review the applications? Because the way the rules work is if you give to 20, there's probably 100 plus because they have to be—I assume there are a bunch. They have to be independent, right? I assume there are a bunch. The thought that when they're going through, I never read the detailed application. Not one single time.

Pablo Torre: Okay.

Mark Cuban: Not one single time. That's what you would do.

Pablo Torre: And I want to agree on that perspective. Why don't you think the Clippers or anyone else associated with them have made any of these arguments that you've been making?

Mark Cuban: There's no upside. There's no upside. You got to deal with the NBA. Look, what happens on Twitter.

Pablo Torre: It just feels like they should want someone.

Mark Cuban: No. But no one's even leaked it.

Pablo Torre: There's only downside.

Mark Cuban: That means they have a good organization. No one leaked it. There's only downside. There's only downside to somebody who misspeaks.

Pablo Torre: It just feels like you're making arguments and I'm just wondering why they don't anyway.

Mark Cuban: Because they're going to have to tell everything to the NBA anyway.

Pablo Torre: Okay. So look, if we get to the Mavs for a sec.

Mark Cuban: Sure. So the Mavs of it because—

Pablo Torre: But wait, wait. Again, I want to make my point.

Mark Cuban: Oh, no.

Pablo Torre: And we can keep on. This is not me trying to get you out of here. I'm just saying I got another question.

Mark Cuban: Right. What got me mad is that you didn't have anything concrete. You had conjecture.

Pablo Torre: No, I had seven sources and 3,000 pages of documents.

Mark Cuban: No, those are physical. I had a contract that was never announced. Great. He did nothing for ever. Great. And we had a 50— That has nothing to do with whether or not Ballmer violated the CBA.

Pablo Torre: But with the whole—

Mark Cuban: Okay. So you just get my point. Look, if you would come up, if you find a smoking gun, even if you had more—

Pablo Torre: So does the Dennis Wong thing change your mind?

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: If that was in episode one, you'd be like, oh, that makes more sense.

Mark Cuban: No, no. A little bit?

Pablo Torre: No, because I learned more between episode one and two as I dug in more. But the Dennis Wong thing is exactly what we're talking about. Nine days separation between money in, money out.

Mark Cuban: Okay, let's start. Going back to the beginning, where I was, what got me mad, if you will, not mad, but—

Pablo Torre: That's okay. I'm not here to be mad if you're mad.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, made me interested is you shit on somebody's reputation without having any real facts.

Pablo Torre: I'm not cheating on my reputation. That was a deeply sourced, documented—

Mark Cuban: The fact that it's deeply sourced—

Pablo Torre: Investigative report.

Mark Cuban: No. Kudos to you for finding your sources. No issues there. The conclusions you came to, shit on Steve Ballmer, and that was wrong because you didn't have enough information to make that connection.

Pablo Torre: I totally respect that you feel that way. I do. And I want you to have said it. So nothing... Okay, moving on. Nothing about that that I want to disagree with. I think it's okay for you to feel that way. The Mavs. So part of the reason why it's funny to be in this eternal conversation with you is because people are like, are you ever going to ask him about the Mavs and the Dirk Nowitzki sweetheart deal in 2014 to stay in Dallas, where he re-signed for about $8 million a year when, of course, he had max offers on the table that I have confirmed. There's a conspiracy theory out there. And by the way, this is me asking. This is like, I don't have...

Mark Cuban: I'm here to confess. I gave him $48 million. That is not a source. That is actual Mark. The conspiracy out there... You know, is that, why would he take so much less? He wanted Tim Duncan money. He was at his age. And remember, the cap, I went back and looked, was $58 million three years in a row, right? It wasn't going up at all. And it was, how do you manage your cap? And Tim Duncan had done a three for 30 deal. And I vividly remember having the conversation. And he's like, I'd like to get Tim Duncan money. I'm like, Dirk, you know, cap stayed flat. Here's what we want to do. And he was like, okay. And then the next year, 2016, when the cap went up, we were able to pay a lot more.

Pablo Torre: But the money he left on the table, the question is like—

Mark Cuban: No, you're presuming—

Pablo Torre: Okay. He had max offers. I don't even know that they spoke to him. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. But look, if he had—

Mark Cuban: I can tell you that he did from those other teams.

Pablo Torre: Who did you talk to? Daryl and who else? I can tell you that there were max offers on the table. Daryl would have come to me and said, let's make a trade. I can pay Dirk. I want to pay Dirk more.

Mark Cuban: So you're saying that he didn't get max offers at that time in 2014? I'm saying it's highly unlikely at the age he was and the fact that they knew that he wanted to stay. That is highly unlikely. Look, Dirk wanting to stay in Dallas is so clear to me. I'm not saying he's getting offers. I'm not getting offers. The cap was $58 million at the time, right? So 35% of 50, right? So the question is, and this is truly like not my reporting. So, but the conspiracy out there, Reddit, our buddy Bill Simmons. When Dirk had that documentary and Cuban's company bought it.

Pablo Torre: Is this documentary?

Mark Cuban: Uh-huh.

Pablo Torre: So, the theory here is that Magnolia Pictures.

Mark Cuban: Uh-huh. My company, they own Half-Life. That's right.

Pablo Torre: Circumvented the cap by overpaying to distribute a documentary about Dirk. How he spent, like, Iron Man-level money on the Dirk doc. Here's 48 million for your diet. Like, who knows what he spent, but...

Mark Cuban: How much do you think we paid?

Pablo Torre: Well, what we did was we checked with the producers of the film. And to your credit, they poured cold water on the whole conspiracy. The head of the production company told us that your company did a $100,000 deal for U.S. distribution rights.

Mark Cuban: For how many years?

Pablo Torre: Ten. So, yeah. I'm just, look, I'm not here to, like, say gotcha. I'm just here to legitimately say, if I find evidence.

Mark Cuban: I appreciate you looking. You know what? And I thank you. I thank you for just dispelling all the nonsense. I called the producers. So, I appreciate it.

Pablo Torre: And so, just to confirm, did the Mavericks circumvent the salary cap with Dirk Nowitzki in 2014?

Mark Cuban: No.

Pablo Torre: Very good. Do you think the Knicks may have circumvented the cap in taking Jalen Brunson from your Mavericks?

Mark Cuban: I don't know. A different answer. Yeah, I don't know.

Pablo Torre: Okay. I just think there was a lot of play there. Yeah. Luka. I want to get to the Luka Doncic thing because your first public comments on that trade were kind of incredible.

Mark Cuban: Yep.

Pablo Torre: They were very funny. February 2025 of this year. That's funny to me.

Mark Cuban: Oh, I mean, it's hilarious, the setting. I mean, you had sold your majority stake to the Mavs by then.

Pablo Torre: Do you remember where you were?

Mark Cuban: No, I don't. Let's play the video.

[Video clip plays]

Mark Cuban in video: And so I wanted to start off with a question because you've been in, you know, unique situations and maybe you can help. If after you left Microsoft, you found out that Steve Ballmer traded Windows 11, like the new hot operating system, for Windows 10, the Hall of Fame, but older. What would you do? I might have to hide from the press. I know a couple other people that are in that situation.

Pablo Torre: So can you now refresh our memory?

Mark Cuban: Yeah, I appreciate you showing that. That was fun.

Pablo Torre: Who are you on stage with?

Mark Cuban: Thank you. Bill Gates.

Pablo Torre: Remember where it was?

Mark Cuban: It was in Dallas. I forget what the venue was. Dallas Museum of Art.

Pablo Torre: Okay. And so I bring this all up because what Dallas is like when that comment is made and the organizations you support. I thought you were going to tie it to Bill Gates, to Steve Ballmer.

Mark Cuban: Oh, so, I mean, it was available for me.

Pablo Torre: But actually, like, what I've been doing is I'm like, okay, here are the organizations that Mark's involved with, the networks he moves in. And we've mentioned a number of them in the conversation already. We've mentioned your Major League Pickleball team, the George W. Bush Presidential Center, where you gave a talk. I asked about DeAndre Jordan without rehashing all the details of the DeAndre Jordan commitment.

Mark Cuban: Oh, yeah, I had to say his name.

Pablo Torre: Okay. The Dallas Museum of Art, where you joked about Luka with Bill Gates, of course, close to Steve Ballmer. And even, I was looking at some other causes. By the way, you do, your charitable work is, like, real. Like, the Mavs under your administration, like the Southwestern Medical Foundation, like, did really good shit. But there is something that I realize that you've not volunteered with me in these back and forths that we've had. And I wonder if you know what it is now that I've built up to this question.

Mark Cuban: I have no idea.

Pablo Torre: It turns out that Dennis Wong lives in Dallas.

Mark Cuban: Oh, he does.

Pablo Torre: It also turns out that Dennis Wong is involved with every one of those exact same organizations that you are that I just mentioned.

Mark Cuban: Really?

Pablo Torre: Dennis Wong also owns a major football team based in Texas called the Texas Ranchers. He's the first face listed on the website's ownership group page.

Mark Cuban: Of the Rangers?

Pablo Torre: Dennis Wong serves. He owns the Ranchers.

Mark Cuban: Oh, I didn't know that.

Pablo Torre: Dennis Wong serves on the Executive Advisory Council of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Mark Cuban: I did not know that.

Pablo Torre: Dennis Wong's on the Board of Trustees of the Dallas Museum of Art.

Mark Cuban: I did not know that.

Pablo Torre: Where his best friend's old business partner, Microsoft, Bill Gates, their old Harvard classmate, was invited to give a talk this year with you.

Mark Cuban: Did not know that. Let me just say on this, that was the first time I had met Bill Gates. And so his PR people called me and said, would you be interested, he's doing a book tour. Would you be interested in interviewing Bill? He's had different people interview him at all the different stops. I'm like, I'd never met Bill. It sounds interesting. So that was the first time I had met him.

Pablo Torre: When was the first time you met Dennis?

Mark Cuban: He came to a Mavs game probably towards the end of last season. And there's probably, I think there's a picture of him being close to me in proximity. So somebody introduced me to him and said, yeah, he's Steve Ballmer's partner.

Pablo Torre: Right. He's also, you know, the alternate governor of the Clippers.

Mark Cuban: Okay. Has been, according to LinkedIn, since April 2017.

Pablo Torre: Okay. So I'm just saying, like, did you guys ever encounter each other at the Board of Governors meetings for like a half dozen years than when you were there together?

Mark Cuban: I don't know that I have. It's possible. Like an Asian dude.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, it's possible. Not exactly looking like the other owners.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, because Ballmer, as best I remember, he was there every meeting. But the alternate governor also can, you know, can attend, hang along. But Ballmer, like, to his credit.

Pablo Torre: So they did this year, by the way.

Mark Cuban: What's that?

Pablo Torre: This year, Steve and Dennis both were in attendance at the Board of Governors.

Mark Cuban: Okay. I don't recall. I may have met Dennis, but I do remember meeting him at a game.

Pablo Torre: Yeah. So just to reiterate, he's not somebody that you talk to or anything like that?

Mark Cuban: No, never.

Pablo Torre: Okay.

Mark Cuban: I've never had a conversation with him outside of being face-to-face.

Pablo Torre: Not even at pickleball?

Mark Cuban: Not even at pickleball.

Pablo Torre: Not even when the Ranchers are playing the Flash?

Mark Cuban: Never. I've yet to be, I'm sorry to admit, at a Flash game or match or whatever they call them. But I root for him.

Pablo Torre: I can tell. I can tell. So I guess we're near the end.

Mark Cuban: No. Don't let it in.

Pablo Torre: I know. I know. So I just want to reiterate, you haven't talked to Steve Ballmer. You haven't talked to Dennis Wong. Haven't talked to the NBA. Haven't talked to Adam Silver. Haven't talked to anybody associated with him. How do you think they feel about you?

Mark Cuban: Oh, I don't care. They're probably like annoyed by it. Knowing Adam, they're annoyed.

Pablo Torre: Yeah.

Mark Cuban: You know, but they know that I take, you know, this is what I do. I like doing this stuff. I like the challenge.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban: And I've been there, right? I've been accused. I've been accused by people who didn't know shit. And, you know, I was under the firestorm. And so I've been there. And I just want to make clear, billionaires are people too.

Pablo Torre: Yeah, and it's not like we all hang out. The whole billionaire meme thing.

Mark Cuban: My friends are still my friends from high school, from college, from rugby. Those are my guys.

Pablo Torre: I'm merely saying that I am trying to understand the networks and how the money flows because I'm not one of you guys. I give opportunity to comment and fact check and push back at every opportunity for every episode.

Mark Cuban: And you deserve credit for that. And I appreciate that.

Pablo Torre: I'm not looking for, you know, I've had in the head, but I just want to make clear that none of this is a bad faith effort. It's why you're here.

Mark Cuban: Right. It's because I want to...

Pablo Torre: No, and I appreciate it. Steel manning, as they call it, right?

Mark Cuban: Steel manning, right.

Pablo Torre: I want not straw men, but steel men, even those that get shot by Mark Wahlberg on Amazon Prime. Do you think the Knicks at the end here should be worried about an upcoming episode of Mark Cuban Finds Out?

Mark Cuban: You know, that's behind me. You know, more power to JB, more power to everything. Was I happy that they only got dinged for a second round pick? No. No, it should have been far worse, but it is what it is.

Pablo Torre: Do you remain, Mark Cuban, at the end here, team Ballmer?

Mark Cuban: Yes. I mean, 16 contractual payments, one investment that's within nine days of one of the payments is not enough to fuck with Steve Ballmer. I think that was wrong. But thank you for letting me say my piece. I appreciate that.

Pablo Torre: You deserve a lot of respect for that, and I appreciate that. There's no personal way in it at all. At the risk of being my own greatest enemy, I might even want to do this again. We'll see what comes up next, right? I mean...

Mark Cuban: My disappointment is only one folder access.

Pablo Torre: Hold on, do we have anything else? Fuck. I seriously thought about bringing my own folder. I'm bringing something down. Mark, I will simply say, be careful what you wish for.

Mark Cuban: Yeah.

Pablo Torre: This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

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Pablo Torre: ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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