Slow-moving companies are handing AI-savvy founders a huge opening, according to the billionaire investor.
By Jonathan Small | edited by Dan Bova | Oct 29, 2026
Mark Cuban thinks the world’s next Elon Musk won’t be a merchandise of several big tech company, but a scrappy entrepreneur perchance assisted by a squad of AI agents. “There’s no improved period to be an entrepreneur than correct now,” he told The a16z Show. “There volition be the trillionaire in the basement.”
— a16z (@a16z) October 28, 2026Mark Cuban says the deficiency of AI acceptance in organizations method the "trillionaire in the basement" entrepreneur is coming:
"You have to be capable to comprehend as a CEO and in the C-suite how all those things effect your company. Once you get a fine grasp on that… you can just… https://t.co/Xy45fM16fx pic.twitter.com/6fEL5QO8n2
The beginning exists, he says, since most companies are dilatory to clasp AI and their leaders don’t comprehend it. Until the C-suite gets it, Cuban says, those organizations volition struggle.
To display how exposed big brands are, he sat downward alongside the caput of a person food business and asked ChatGPT to create a competitor to its best-selling cookie. About three minutes later, the exec was swearing.
Still, Cuban says AI can’t do it alone. It’s publish astute but not street smart, so it needs a individual entrepreneur directing it.
Mark Cuban thinks the world’s next Elon Musk won’t be a merchandise of several big tech company, but a scrappy entrepreneur perchance assisted by a squad of AI agents. “There’s no improved period to be an entrepreneur than correct now,” he told The a16z Show. “There volition be the trillionaire in the basement.”
— a16z (@a16z) October 28, 2026Mark Cuban says the deficiency of AI acceptance in organizations method the "trillionaire in the basement" entrepreneur is coming:
"You have to be capable to comprehend as a CEO and in the C-suite how all those things effect your company. Once you get a fine grasp on that… you can just… https://t.co/Xy45fM16fx pic.twitter.com/6fEL5QO8n2
The beginning exists, he says, since most companies are dilatory to clasp AI and their leaders don’t comprehend it. Until the C-suite gets it, Cuban says, those organizations volition struggle.
To display how exposed big brands are, he sat downward alongside the caput of a person food business and asked ChatGPT to create a competitor to its best-selling cookie. About three minutes later, the exec was swearing.
Still, Cuban says AI can’t do it alone. It’s publish astute but not street smart, so it needs a individual entrepreneur directing it.
