Mark Cuban Is Still a YouTube Hater: 'What Have They Done Right?' (Video)

Eight years ago, billionaire entrepreneur and sports owner Mark Cuban said “moronic” would be an understated description of a potential Google acquisition of YouTube. In 2015, with YouTube as the biggest home to video on the Web, Cuban isn’t backing off his stance.

“They tried to do subscriptions. Failed,” Cuban said in an onstage interview at the Code/Media conference on Wednesday evening at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Calif. “Now they’re trying again. They’re trying to do music.”

“What have they done right?” he said, also mentioning YouTube’s mostly failed initiative to pay media companies and actors and actresses to create highly produced content for the site.

Cuban, the entrepreneur-turned-owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” is not an unbiased observer. He made his fortune by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion during the height of the dot-com bubble in 1999. But Broadcast.com came along too soon to last, and Cuban still seems bitter that YouTube was able to persist despite serious copyright issues.

So how does he explain YouTube’s popularity among teens and the rise of legitimate YouTube stars?

“Out of sheer numbers, you’re going to find something that resonates with a large audience at some point,” Cuban said in the interview with Re/code’s Peter Kafka and Walt Mossberg.

When he wasn’t throwing jabs at Google and YouTube, Cuban was waxing poetic about what he gets out of his role on “Shark Tank.” He doesn’t do it for the fame, he said. Nor for the money, which he definitely doesn’t need. It’s all about the audience that it appeals to.

“It’s the No. 1 show in all of television watched by families together,” Cuban said, because it shows “the American dream is alive and well.”

Here are some video highlights of the conversation:

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Contributions are a key part of the future of Vox

Readers rely on Vox for clear, nuanced coverage that not only illuminates the issues, but poses solutions, too. And we rely on help from our readers: Advertising and grants cover the majority of our costs, but we count on contributions to help us close the gaps in our budget. In fact, we’re looking to reach 95,000 individual contributions before the end of the year. Will you make the next contribution right now? Our average gift is just $20 — and it goes a long way in helping us keep our work free. Vox is here to help everyone understand what’s shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. Join that mission by making a contribution today.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via