Cuban Mark: biography, photos and interesting facts

Cuban Mark is an American businessman, billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team (National Basketball Association). Also Mark is the owner of such companies as Landmark Theaters, SEO-companies HDNet and HDTV Cable Network. The general condition of Cuebana Mark is 2.3 billion US dollars.

I started my career with a barman

Many believe that Mark Cuban - it's just a genius, others argue that his success is not explained, except by banal luck. However, whatever the opinions, the fact remains: Mark is a successful entrepreneur, whose state is counted annually by world tabloids and the eminent Forbes magazine. This person has an incredible mind, his calculations are almost always correct, due to which he makes profitable long-term investments with a high return of dividends. Many will say that making money is much easier when you already have seed money, but not every second person on the planet becomes a billionaire. Young and novice businessmen who have not yet managed to put together their first million or a billion, should consider the success story of Mark Cuban as comforting, after graduating from college, he began his career as an ordinary bartender.

Cuban Mark: biography and interesting facts from life

Born July 31, 1958 in the city of Pittsburgh (USA). He grew up in Pennsylvania (a suburb of Pittsburgh) in an ordinary family of workers who professed the Jewish religion. Father Norton Cuban was working in a car repair shop - he was building car interiors.

Since childhood, Mark has been resourceful and creative. His first small success took place at the age of 12, when he organized his mini-business for the sale of garbage bags. On the proceeds he bought expensive sports shoes for playing basketball. In addition, he sold greeting cards, magazines and beer. For his youth Mark has changed a lot of works: he was a barman, a dance instructor in the direction of disco, a seller of shoes ... In his teens, Cuban liked to collect stamps. Once he made a bargain, selling a rare series of brands, for which he raised $ 1,100. This money went to pay for his college education. Even this fact shows that at such a young age he was already an independent and calculating boy.

The last year of training in high school Mark exchanged for admission to the University of Pittsburgh, and after the first course was transferred to Bloomington (University of Indiana). In 1981, Cuban Mark received a higher education and a bachelor's degree in business management.

Work with Mellon Bank

Educated in Indiana, Mark returned to his native Pittsburgh, where he immediately found a job in a budding bank called Mellon. In those days all existing banks worked with paper documentation. Then there were already computers, but there was no proper software to keep automated records of data. In Mellon, Mark was engaged in introducing data from paper to a computer, providing the necessary estimate for the bank. Most of his peers, who also came to Mellon, were proud of their profession, but Mark had very different views on life - he was striving for something more and constantly thinking about how to improve the work of the enterprise. By his initiative, Cuban Mark constantly shared with the board of directors.

In the interview, the guy said that he often sent his notes to the bank's general director with innovative proposals for Mellon. Once he read an article in the journal about how to raise the economy of a corporate enterprise bypassing payments of social benefits. In return, I received a letter of thanks. Then he thought that he could do more good for the bank, doing other activities, and not just entering data from paper into the computer. And he organized something like a "club of recruits", where the bank's executives could conduct business negotiations in an informal atmosphere with young workers, the same as himself. Then Mark began to publish a newsletter with a news line about the existing projects. He did it in a casual journalistic style, in which there was always a share of humor. The guy was sure that his steps would always be approved by the general director, but that was not the case. One day, he called Kuban into his office and yelled at him, shouting phrases like "Who do you think you are here? You'll never be able to get around me, and if you resist, I'll crush you. " The guy tried to explain that his activities are aimed at making Mellon earn as much money as possible, which, according to Mark, received crude and ambiguous answers.

After this conversation our hero realized that it was time to look for a new job. So he again got to Indiana, where he found a place in the firm Tronics 2000, and after a while he moved to Dallas and got a job as a bartender.

Working in Your Business Software

In his spare time from barmen cares, Cuban Mark was looking for a new job. Soon he received an invitation letter to be interviewed at Your Business Software, which sold software for the PC. It is noteworthy that not long before that, Mark bought a computer for $ 99, which he began to master the basics of programming. Acquired coding skills allowed Kuban to get this work. "Yesterday's" bartender began to show initiative, which impressed the leadership. Then he was promised a salary of 18 thousand dollars a year plus commission payments. Fortunately, there was no limit, because now Mark worked in a promising position with a good salary.

A successful mistake in a million

Once he was offered to accept an order for 15 thousand dollars, from which he could personally receive 10 percent. At that time, $ 1500 was a very good money, thanks to which he could move to another apartment and start a new life. Calling the boss and reporting on the deal, Mark heard in response that it was not worth agreeing. Not listening to the boss, Cuban still accepted the check, thinking that he just joked. Upon his return to the office, he was dismissed for disobedience.

Mark Cuban: A Success Story. MicroSolutions

Dismissal from the company Your Business Software has become a defining factor in the career of Mark Cuban. It was after that that he decided to open his own business. After receiving a check for 15 thousand dollars, he went to the person who made the order, and asked that everything remain in force. "I told him that I have absolutely no money, but if you give me a chance to fulfill your order, I can start my own company." The customer reassured Mark with his consent, and he began to work. Thus, in 1983, Cuban Mark founded his own consulting company called MicroSolutions. Together with a friend and colleague from Your Business Software, he began to promote his company, which was aimed at creating software for system integration.

Sale of MicroSolutions

The business of Cubana began to grow and prosper. After a while the company reached a high level, having such large customers as Perot Systems. In 1990, Cuban Mark sold his company for $ 6 million. After carrying out financial transactions, taking into account some taxes, Cuban received $ 2 million on his personal bank account. It would seem that nothing more is needed - one can survive the rest of life with a clown and there is nothing to do. However, Cuban Mark - an entrepreneur who does not stop there.

"Either we will become millionaires, or if we become unemployed, we will remain friends"

In 1995, Mark founded the company Audionet, which broadcast on the Internet news about student basketball. Thus, he combined his earnings with his own interest. Later, in 1998, the company was renamed Broadcast.com. The new portal was devoted to news from the world of sports, and also on it there was a whole column about legal proceedings with US President Bill Clinton. The Internet portal was gaining momentum and grew by employees, who eventually became 330 people. All worked for a symbolic $ 10 an hour, but Cuban always reassured his employees with future success, offering to buy shares from Broadcast.com. One day he told his staff: "Either we will become millionaires, or if we become unemployed, we will remain friends." With this ideology, the company began to work smoothly and efficiently. Anticipating the rapid growth of dotcoms, Cuban has made incredible progress. In early 1999, the turnover of the portal amounted to 13.5 million dollars. And a little later Broadcast.com organizes the filing of documents for the initial issue of shares. At that moment, the financial leverage of the company soared to the skies, and all employees who trusted Mark became millionaires.

The first purchases of a billionaire

In 1999, the Yahoo! search service Buys a Broadcast.com portal for $ 6 billion. Tearing off a fabulous jackpot, Cuban Mark (photo below) gets 2 billion on his personal account and after several months makes several large purchases: a mansion for $ 14 million and a personal plane "Golf-Stream-5" for 41 million dollars.

By the way, the purchase of the aircraft was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest electronic transaction. A year later Mark sublimated his childhood dream of becoming a basketball player, buying himself a basketball club "Dallas Mavericks" for 280 million dollars.