Self-made multimillionaire Emma Grede says she was ‘using AI like a 42-year-old woman’—until Mark Cuban gave her a wake-up call

The British-born entrepreneur Emma Grede, best known as the founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s $5 billion shapewear empire Skims and the CEO of denim brand Good American, has built a reputation on spotting cultural shifts before they hit the mainstream. 

When her and Khloe Kardashian’s Good American denim line dropped, it made $1 million on day one, making it the biggest denim launch in apparel history. Grede has helped redefine inclusion in retail and became the first Black female investor on Shark Tank—all before turning 45.

But for all her business instincts, Grede admits there’s one area where she needed a push—and fellow ex-Shark Tank star Mark Cuban was the one who gave it to her.

In an exclusive 2025 interview with Fortune, Grede talked about an episode of her hit podcast show Aspire that hadn’t aired yet, where the two sat down and compared their AI usage. 

“I was already kind of getting there, but if I’m really honest, that episode where we really delved into AI gave me a new urgency around how I use AI,” she recalled, adding that Cuban had a staggering 60 AI apps on his phone. “Yeah, he gave me a kick.”

As soon as the recording wrapped up, she said that she started looking into AI courses at the Wharton School and Harvard for this fall. “I need to figure this out, because I’m using AI like a 42-year-old woman,” Grede candidly admitted while laughing.

Grede gave her staff a cash........

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