Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American businessman, television producer, investor, and television personality.

He is the former principal owner and current minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), co-owner of 2929 Entertainment, and one of the main "sharks" on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cuban's entrepreneurial actions manifested early with ventures ranging from selling garbage bags to running newspapers during a strike.

He graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and embarked on a diverse business career that included founding MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com, both of which he sold at substantial profits.

Cuban's investments span various industries, from technology and media to sports and entertainment.

After one year at the University of Pittsburgh, Cuban transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he graduated from the Kelley School of Business in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree in management.

He chose Indiana's Kelley School of Business without even visiting the campus because it "had the least expensive tuition of all the business schools on the top 10 list".

He had various business ventures during college, including a bar, disco lessons, and a chain letter.

After graduating, Cuban returned to Pittsburgh and took a job with Mellon Bank, where he immersed himself in the study of machines and networking.

On July 7, 1982, Cuban moved to Dallas, Texas, where he first found a job as a bartender for a Greenville Avenue bar called Elan and then as a salesperson for Your Business Software, one of the earliest PC software retailers in Dallas.

He was fired less than a year later after meeting with a client to procure new business instead of opening the store.

Cuban co-founded MicroSolutions with help from his previous customers from Your Business Software.

MicroSolutions was initially a system integrator and software reseller.

The company was an early proponent of technologies such as Carbon Copy, Lotus Notes, and CompuServe.

One of the company's largest clients was Perot Systems.

The company grew to more than $30 million in revenue, and in 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe—then a subsidiary of H&R Block—for $6 million.

He made approximately $2 million after taxes on the deal.

In 1995, Cuban and fellow Indiana University alumnus Todd Wagner joined Audionet (founded in 1989 by Chris Jaeb, who retained 10% of the company), combining their mutual interest in Indiana Hoosier college basketball and webcasting.

With a single server and an 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, Broadcast.com helped launch the first live-streamed Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

That year, during the dot com boom, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in Yahoo!

stock.

After the sale of Broadcast.com, Cuban hedged against the risk of a decline in the value of the Yahoo!

shares he received in the deal.

The Guinness Book of Records credits Cuban with the "largest single e-commerce transaction" after purchasing a Gulfstream V jet for $40 million over the internet in October 1999.

Yahoo!'s costly purchase of Broadcast.com is now regarded as one of the worst internet acquisitions of all time.

He has been a prominent figure in the NBA, known for his active involvement with the Mavericks (with which he won the 2011 NBA Championship as owner) and frequent disputes with the league's management.

Outside of business, Cuban has gathered notability for his philanthropy, political commentary, and involvement in reality television.

Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

His father, Norton Cuban, was an automobile upholsterer.

Cuban described his mother, Shirley (née Feldman ), as someone with "a different job or different career goal every other week."

Cuban is Jewish, and grew up in Mount Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh, in a Jewish working-class family.

His paternal grandfather changed the surname from "Chabenisky" to "Cuban" after his family emigrated from Russia through Ellis Island.

His maternal grandparents were Romanian Jewish immigrants, according to Mark's brother Brian, though Mark has claimed his maternal grandmother was from Lithuania.

Cuban first ventured into business at age 12.

He sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive sneakers.

A few years later, he earned money by selling stamps and coins.

At age 16, Cuban took advantage of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike by running newspapers from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.

Instead of attending high school for his senior year, he enrolled as a full-time student at the University of Pittsburgh, where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.