Mark Cuban

MARK CUBAN

Place of birth : Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Net worth : $2.3 billion

Mark Cuban, 51, is an American entrepreneur. He is the founder of Broadcast.com (which Yahoo bought for $4.6 billion). He is the Owner of Dallas Mavericks, co-owner of 2929 Entertainment, and Chairman of HDNet. In 1995, Cuban and fellow Indiana University alumnus Todd Wagner started Audionet, combining their mutual interest in college basketball and webcasting. With a single server and ISDN line, Audionet became Broadcast.com in 1998. By 1999, Broadcast.com had grown to 330 employees and $13.5 million in revenue for the second quarter.

In 1999, during the Dot-com boom, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.9 billion in Yahoo! Stock. Then as a salesperson for Your Business Software, one of the first PC software retailers in Dallas. He was terminated less than a year later, after meeting with a client to procure new business instead of opening the store. In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe—then a subsidiary of H&R Block—for $6 million. He retained approximately $2 million after taxes on the deal.

As of 2009, Cuban is #296 on Forbes’ “World’s Richest People” list, with a net worth of $2.3 billion. The Guinness Book of Records credits Cuban with the “largest single e-commerce transaction,” after paying $40 million for his Gulfstream V jet in October 1999. Prior to his purchase of the Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading provider of multimedia and streaming on the Internet, in 1995, selling it to Yahoo! in July of 1999. Before Broadcast.com, Cuban co-founded MicroSolutions, a leading National Systems Integrator, in 1983, and later sold it to CompuServe.

At the IPO in 1998, the renamed Broadcast.com set a record for single-day growth, closing at $62.75 per share after an $18 opening. Cuban became a billionaire overnight, and a year later the company was sold to Yahoo. In addition to his sports and internet ventures, Cuban owns 2929 Entertainment, which in turn owns Landmark Theaters, and produces various film and television content. Cuban continues to work with Wagner in another venture, 2929 Entertainment, which provides vertically integrated production and distribution of films and video. Cuban was featured on the cover of the November 2003 premiere issue of Best magazine. In October 2008, Cuban started Bailoutsleuth.com as a grassroots, online portal for oversight over the US government’s $700 billion dollar “bailout” of financial institutions.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because… All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.”

“In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale.”

“Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.”

“If you don’t follow the stock market, you are missing some amazing drama.”