"Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people"
About this Quote
The subtext is both motivational and quietly corrosive. A scoreboard doesn't measure meaning, ethics, or stability; it measures points. By treating money as the definitive proxy for performance, Cuban nods to a culture that distrusts subjective success and prefers hard numbers, even when the numbers are partial. It also reveals a particular American comfort with comparison. The line doesn't just assume inequality; it turns inequality into the premise of the game. If money is the scoreboard, then other people aren't peers or collaborators - they're opponents, benchmarks, proof.
Context matters because Cuban is a billionaire entrepreneur and media personality whose brand blends hustle, transparency, and a kind of populist capitalism. Coming from him, the metaphor normalizes his own position: he's not "rich", he's "ahead". It also flatters the listener with the promise of agency - you can climb the rankings if you play smart. The wit of the line is its ruthless clarity: it captures why money so easily becomes identity in a status-saturated economy, while pretending it's just a neutral way to keep score.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cuban, Mark. (2026, January 17). Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-is-a-scoreboard-where-you-can-rank-how-81964/
Chicago Style
Cuban, Mark. "Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-is-a-scoreboard-where-you-can-rank-how-81964/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-is-a-scoreboard-where-you-can-rank-how-81964/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.







