‘I’ve had a hard week’

“I have to tell you I’ve had a tough week,” said Mark Cuban, shortly after that Friday night. The sold -out audience burst into applause.

The conversation between Cuban and Porte, Microsoft founder and author of The New Memoir Source codeHad been on the Arts & Letters Live calendar for a long time, but the date happened to fall six days after the trade heard ‘around the world. Last Saturday night, news that Dallas Mavericks – once famously owned by Cuban, broke out, although he sold his majority share in 2023 – had swapped Phenom Luka Doncic to Los Angeles Laker Anthony Davis. If an actual bomb went out in Dallas, it probably wouldn’t have made so many headlines.

Since then, the free -speaking Cuban had mostly remained silent. “MFFL,” he texted Dallas Morning News Reporter Brad Townsend, the abbreviation, meaning “Mavs -Fan for Life.” On a basketball -show called Run it backFormer Mav Chandler Parsons said he had SMS -Cuban that he was confused about the trade. “So do two of us,” Cuban replied apparently.

The tsunami of fan -exhortation and Cuban uncharacteristic restraint raised the efforts on Friday night’s event, which would be Cuban’s first public performance since trade. At a Dallas Museum of Art Facebook post Promotion of the event (the DMA Runs Arts & Letters Live), a commentator had written: “Will they make a question and question? I have questions. “

In fact, they wouldn’t make a question and question. Instead, the two titans remained locked in conversation for 80 minutes and talked about stories in Source code Including Gates’ prominent boy age and the wild west of the early personal computing. Before they dived, however, Cuban approached the elephant in the room.

After the opening commentary about his tough week, Cuban Gates told him he loved Source codeBut he had a question to the billionaire contractor.

“If after leaving Microsoft you found that Steve Ballmer traded Windows 11-Like the new Hot Operating System-To Windows 10, Hall-of-Fame, but older operating system, what would you do?”

The audience’s laughter punctured Cuban’s delivery, and after the question, the packed space welcomed. Gates played the moment straight. “I might have to hide from the press,” he said.

Cuban nodded. “I know a few other people who are in this situation,” he said.

‘They do not make it like that for us!’

Source code Covers Gates’ history of origin, from his childhood in the 50s Seattle to the early days of Microsoft. Cuban was an ideal interlocutor who was one of the few people who could personally relate to such a stunning narrative arc. The two laughed at not being cool children, but turned on the possibilities of new technology. Cuban that developed and then sold microsolutions and TV camp. Earlier in his career, asked how Gates balanced to be the CEO of a company with fatherhood.

“I played the role my dad played. I was always calm and I was pretty busy, ”he said, adding that he was lucky that Ballmer eventually stepped up to become CEO.

“Now he has the rocks,” Cuban said with a little spice in his voice. Ballmer bought La Clippers in 2014 after retiring from Microsoft. “They do not make acts like that for us!” Cuban said and evoked a great laugh when he seemed to refer to the Doncic trade. It was the kind of week when any use of the word “trade” got a crowd reaction.

From early personal computers to AI

Another interesting moment came when Gates talked about the race about winning the early personal computer market. Commodore PET, Radio Shacks TRS-80 and Apple II competed with Texas Instruments, which had dominated personal calculators so thoroughly that its team entered the crisis with high expectations. “For a variety of reasons, it was not super success,” Gates said of Ti’s personal computer business.

“You’re at home in Texas Instruments in Richardson, Texas,” Cuban reminded him with laughter.

“I know I know,” Gates said.

The conversation grew deep as the subject turned to AI. “In some ways it is more in -depth than what you and I were part of,” Gates told Cuban. Gates is a master of AI that he says will take us from a world of scarcity, “where there is never enough medical treatment, there is never enough good education, food, mental healthcare,” to a world of abundance . “Then you face this almost philosophical problem,” Gates said. When robots and software do the work, what does a human life look like?

“This is in the distant future,” Cubanian, and Gates agreed, as Cuban asked, “Like six, seven months.”

‘And that leads us right to politics’

When the bleeding edge of the culture, these two men are older statesmen now. Gates turns 70 years later in the year and Cuban is 66. Both remain active to shape the way we live; Gates Foundation has invested in developing countries while cuban costs plus drugs interferes with Big Pharma. Both have stayed politically, with gates donated a reported $ 50 million to support Kamala Harris’ president Campaign and Cuban beef with Elon Musk on X. If you hoped to hear about it, you were out of luck.

Cuban made a segment towards the end of the evening. “And that leads us the right to politics,” he said. “Oh no, we only have 90 seconds left!”

Who can blame them for not wanting to go there? Instead, they spent the last moment or watching talking about how lucky they should be part of the story.

“Is the American dream alive?” Cuban asked gates.

Gates replied, “It was for me.”