If you had $100,000 sitting in your account, what would you do with it? Buy a house? Dump it into stocks? Pay off your student loans and go on a Target spree with what's left?
In a 2010 Forbes interview, billionaire Mark Cuban—longtime "Shark Tank" star and the guy now trying to shake up Big Pharma—offered his take. And spoiler: it's not what the TikTok finance gurus are preaching.
Instead of pouring it into the market or investing in a startup, Cuban said this:
"First I pay off all my credit card debt and evaluate paying off any other debt I have. What I have left I put in the bank."
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That's right. The man who made billions selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo in the 1990s says step one is killing your debt. Step two? Parking your leftover cash in the bank—not because it'll grow, but because it'll wait.
His strategy is equal parts frugal and sharp. He adds, "Then I try to create as much transactional value as possible from that cash."
He looks at his entire budget and finds savings in boring but necessary stuff—like "toothpaste to soup." Buying in bulk, he argues, gives you the best guaranteed ROI anywhere, sometimes saving you 30% to 50% on everyday items. That's your safest return, Cuban says. Better than trying to time the market.
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Cuban says, "Every five years or so there is a bubble bursting or amazing deals available because of a change in the economy." That might sound dramatic, but the pattern isn't entirely off. Look at the timeline:
- 2025: Commercial real estate's under pressure, VC funding has slowed, and inflation is still hanging around.
- 2020: COVID-19 hits. Stocks tank. Unemployment soars. Stimulus money floods the system.
- 2015: Oil prices plunge, China's stock market crashes, and U.S. markets stumble in a major late-summer selloff.
- 2010: The housing market's still reeling from the 2008 crash. Banks are shaky. Foreclosures peak.
- 2005: U.S. housing bubble in full swing—just two years before the subprime mortgage crisis begins to unwind.
- 2000: The dot-com bubble bursts. NASDAQ loses nearly 80% of its value in two years.
- 1995: Tech stocks start to soar, fueled by early internet hype. Just five years later—boom.
His advice might not be about nailing the exact timing—it's more about being ready when the shift happens.
Cuban continued, "Anyone who just kept their cash in the bank rather than in stocks over the past five to 10 years could be buying the home of their dreams for half price in most of the country."
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At the time, that wasn't an exaggeration. Following the housing crash, home prices had dropped dramatically, and interest rates—while not rock-bottom yet—were already sliding. His point wasn't about chasing returns in a savings account. It was about having dry powder when the rest of the market was drowning.
"They earned good money in half the past 10 years on the cash… and even though they aren't making much now, they have the transactional value available to them. Plus they have cash to invest if the market craters and, most importantly, they sleep great at night."
And then comes the mic drop line: "Cash is king—and works far better than Ambien when you want a good night's sleep every night."
So is Cuban right? Depends who you ask. But if history really does crack every five years, and you're debt-free with cash on standby, you might be the one scooping up deals while everyone else is scrambling. And that sounds pretty Shark-like.
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