Mark Cuban is the outspoken owner of the the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, billionaire internet entrepreneur, and chairman of the high-definition television station HDNet.
Mark Cuban was born on the 31st of July, 1958 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. From an early age Cuban had an entrepreneurial ambition to succeed, which may have been influenced by his family's working class upbringing. At the age of just twelve, the young entrepreneur was selling garbage bags to buy an expensive pair of shoes that his father's car upholstering wage could not (or would not) pay for.
Cuban continued his entrepreneurial ways and did several jobs while at school and university. He graduated with a business degree from the Indiana University in 1981, before moving to Dallas and starting a computer consulting company called MicroSolutions. MicroSolutions made Cuban a millionaire when he sold the company to Compuserve for $6 million in 1990.
His next major venture was with the Internet broadcasting company Broadcast.com. He and his university friend Todd Wagner saw Broadcast.com become a company with more than 300 employees and almost $100 million in annual revenue. In 1998 the company set a one record for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) by increasing nearly 250%, from $18 per share to $62.75 per share.
With the dot com crash looming, Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.04 billion worth of stock. This made the founders Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban instant billionaires (on paper at least). The services offered by Broadcast.com became Yahoo! Broadcast Solutions and eventually split into other services of Yahoo!. The url of broadcast.com now redirects to the Yahoo homepage, with no semblance of the company that was once worth $5.04 billion to the company.
The president of Yahoo! at the time, Jeff Mallett said "Broadcast.com is a pure-play growth acquisition rather than an integration of services."
Mark Cuban was fortunate enough to have diversified much of his stock holdings before the Dot Com crash of 2000 ate away at much of his new found fortune.
In 2000 Cuban bought the NBA basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. The former owner (Ross Perot, Jr.) had stated that the Dallas Mavericks was not for sale, but eventually gave into Cuban because of his persuasiveness and obvious passion for the team. On the NBA press release, Perot was quoted as saying "Mark is a very good salesman. Mark would not give up and I think I told him 'no' for about six months. I saw in Mark what I felt this organization needed. I saw his enthusiasm and his passion for the game as well as his passion for the Dallas Mavericks. Mark is a longtime fan, and I felt that is what we needed."
Cuban continues to be an active investor and supporter of the Internet, media, and technology industry. He is also the chairman and owner of the high definition television channel HDNet.
Mark Cuban married Tiffany Stewart in 2002. The couple had a daughter together in 2004.
The outspoken billionaire publishes his own blog at BlogMaverick.com where he speaks freely about basketball, technology, business, and the Internet
"You see, the thing about a blog is that its a great place to write about things you are interested in. Its a great place to generate discussion." Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban was born on the 31st of July, 1958 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. From an early age Cuban had an entrepreneurial ambition to succeed, which may have been influenced by his family's working class upbringing. At the age of just twelve, the young entrepreneur was selling garbage bags to buy an expensive pair of shoes that his father's car upholstering wage could not (or would not) pay for.
Cuban continued his entrepreneurial ways and did several jobs while at school and university. He graduated with a business degree from the Indiana University in 1981, before moving to Dallas and starting a computer consulting company called MicroSolutions. MicroSolutions made Cuban a millionaire when he sold the company to Compuserve for $6 million in 1990.His next major venture was with the Internet broadcasting company Broadcast.com. He and his university friend Todd Wagner saw Broadcast.com become a company with more than 300 employees and almost $100 million in annual revenue. In 1998 the company set a one record for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) by increasing nearly 250%, from $18 per share to $62.75 per share.
With the dot com crash looming, Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.04 billion worth of stock. This made the founders Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban instant billionaires (on paper at least). The services offered by Broadcast.com became Yahoo! Broadcast Solutions and eventually split into other services of Yahoo!. The url of broadcast.com now redirects to the Yahoo homepage, with no semblance of the company that was once worth $5.04 billion to the company.The president of Yahoo! at the time, Jeff Mallett said "Broadcast.com is a pure-play growth acquisition rather than an integration of services."
Mark Cuban was fortunate enough to have diversified much of his stock holdings before the Dot Com crash of 2000 ate away at much of his new found fortune.In 2000 Cuban bought the NBA basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. The former owner (Ross Perot, Jr.) had stated that the Dallas Mavericks was not for sale, but eventually gave into Cuban because of his persuasiveness and obvious passion for the team. On the NBA press release, Perot was quoted as saying "Mark is a very good salesman. Mark would not give up and I think I told him 'no' for about six months. I saw in Mark what I felt this organization needed. I saw his enthusiasm and his passion for the game as well as his passion for the Dallas Mavericks. Mark is a longtime fan, and I felt that is what we needed."
Cuban continues to be an active investor and supporter of the Internet, media, and technology industry. He is also the chairman and owner of the high definition television channel HDNet.
Mark Cuban married Tiffany Stewart in 2002. The couple had a daughter together in 2004.The outspoken billionaire publishes his own blog at BlogMaverick.com where he speaks freely about basketball, technology, business, and the Internet
"You see, the thing about a blog is that its a great place to write about things you are interested in. Its a great place to generate discussion." Mark Cuban