Mark Cuban is a hugely successful internet entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.
Cuban began his business career aged 12, selling garbage bags door to door. The seed was planted early on for what would eventually become enormous long-term success.
After graduating from Indiana University, Cuban moved to Dallas. After a dispute with an employer who wanted him to clean instead of closing an important sale, he created MicroSolutions, a computer consulting service. He went on to sell MicroSolutions in 1990 to CompuServe.
In 1995, Cuban and long-time friend Todd Wagner came up with an internet based solution to not being able to listen to Hoosiers Basketball games out in Texas. That solution was Broadcast.com - streaming audio over the internet. In just four short years, Broadcast.com (then Audionet) would be sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars.
After the sale of Broadcast.com, Cuban diversified his wealth to avoid exposure to a market crash. In 2011, Cuban was listed No. 459 on Forbes list of "World's Richest People", with a net worth of $2.6 billion. The Guinness Book of Records credits Cuban with the "largest single e-commerce transaction", after he paid $40 million for his Gulfstream V jet in October 1999.
Since his acquisition of the Dallas Mavericks in 2000, Cuban has overseen the Mavs competing in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 - and becoming NBA World Champions in 2011. They are currently listed as one of Forbes' most valuable franchises in sports.
Cuban owns Landmark Theatres, Magnolia Pictures, and is the chairman of the HDTV cable network AXS TV. He is also a "shark" investor on the television series Shark Tank.
In 2011, Cuban wrote an e-book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, in which he chronicles his life experiences in business and sports. He lives in Dallas with wife Tiffany, daughters Alexis and Alyssa, and son Jake.
