Mark Cuban

(1958- )

Mark Cuban is a Jewish-American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network. Cuban's first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags in order to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes. While in school, he held a variety of jobs, including bartending, disco dancing instructor, and party promotion. He earned his way to college by collecting and selling stamps, and once gained about $1,100 from starting a chain letter.

After attending Indiana University and earning a B.A. in Business, Cuban started a company, MicroSolutions. MicroSolutions was initially a system integrator and software reseller. One of the company's largest clients was Perot Systems. In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to Compuserve—then a subsidiary of H&R Block—for $6 million. He netted approximately $2 million after taxes on the deal. In 1995, Cuban and fellow Indiana University alum Todd Wagner started Broadcast.com, combining their mutual interest in college basketball and webcasting. During the Dot-com boom, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo!, and Cuban received $5.9 billion in Yahoo! Stock. Cuban is #407 on Forbes' "World's Richest People" list with a net worth of $2.3 billion.

Cuban purchased the Dallas Maverick NBA franchise in January 2000. He has successfully transformed the team from perennial losers into one of the leagues most dominating teams, reaching the NBA finals in 2006. His ownership can be characterized as the ultimate fan dream come true. He has been known to be both energetic and controversial, and has been fined by the NBA at least $1,665,000 for 13 incidents, mostly for critical statements about the league and referees. In an interview with the Associated Press, Cuban said that he matches NBA fines with charitable donations of equal amounts. A nationally publicized incident that typifies Cuban’s behavior is when he criticized the league's manager of officials, Ed T. Rush saying that he “wouldn't be able to manage a Dairy Queen.” When Dairy Queen management took offense, Cuban worked for a day at a Dairy Queen in Coppell, Texas, where fans lined up in the street to get a Blizzard from the owner of the Mavericks.