Forbes Profile
- Age: 53
- Source: online media, self-made
- Residence: Dallas, TX
- Country of Citizenship: United States
- Education: Bachelor of Arts / Science, Indiana University
- Marital Status: Married
- Children: 3
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Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur responsible for founding MicroSolutions (a National Systems Integrator/computer consulting firm) and more recently, Broadcast.com. Mark Cuban founded MicroSolutions in 1983 with little computer knowledge. Though he previously hadn’t owned a computer, he constantly worked with a “say yes to anything” philosophy. Anything his clients requested, Mark Cuban taught himself to do, and ultimately finished. By 1990 Mark Cuban was earning $30 million a year. This is when he decided to sell MicroSolutions to CompuServe for millions.
Reminiscing over radio broadcasts of Hoosier games back at Indiana University with a friend sparked the idea of online broadcasting. Thus Broadcast.com was born. Perhaps Cuban’s greatest achievement to date, Broadcast.com introduced radio and T.V. streaming online so that anyone anywhere can enjoy college/professional sports games as well as any other content being broadcasted. In 1999 Yahoo! bought Broadcast.com making Cuban’s employees millionaires and earning himself $2 billion.
Mark Cuban is also known for owning the Dallas Mavericks after purchasing the franchise for $285 million. He also bought a Gulf Stream 5 jet online for $41 million making it the largest online purchase in history.
REFERENCES:
http://www.computer-schools.us/Mark-Cuban.htm
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958)[3] is an American business magnate and investor. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks,[4] Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet.[5]. He is also a part-time "shark" investor (i.e.: wealthy entrepreneur who invests in and judges new ideas/inventions) on the television series Shark Tank.”
Early career
In 1982, Cuban moved to Dallas, Texas. Cuban first found work as a bartender,[17][18] then as a salesperson for Your Business Software, one of the first PC software retailers in Dallas. He was terminated less than a year later, after meeting with a client to procure new business instead of opening the store.[citation needed]
Cuban started a company, MicroSolutions, with support 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.[19] One of the company's largest clients was Perot Systems.[20] In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe—then a subsidiary of H&R Block—for $6 million.[21] He retained approximately $2 million after taxes on the deal.[22]
In 1995, Cuban and fellow Indiana University alumnus Todd Wagner started Audionet, combining their mutual interest in college basketball and webcasting. With a single server and an ISDN line,[23] 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.[24] In 1999, during the dot com boom, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.9 billion in Yahoo! stock.[25]
Business career
After the sale, Cuban diversified his wealth to avoid exposure to a market crash.[26] As of 2011, Cuban is No.459 on Forbes' "World's Richest People" list, with a net worth of $2.5 billion.[27] The Guinness Book of Records credits Cuban with the "largest single e-commerce transaction," after paying $40 million for his Gulfstream V jet in October 1999.[28]
Cuban continues to work with Wagner in another venture, 2929 Entertainment, which provides vertically integrated production and distribution of films and video.[29]
On September 24, 2003, the firm purchased Landmark Theatres, a chain of 58 arthouse movie theaters.[30] The company is also responsible for the updated version of the TV show Star Search, which was broadcast on CBS.[31] 2929 Entertainment released Bubble, a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, in theaters and on DVD on the same day in January 2006 as a simultaneous release.
Cuban was featured on the cover of the November 2003 premiere issue of Best magazine[32] announcing the arrival of High Definition Television. Cuban also was co-founder (with Philip Garvin) of HDNet, the first high-definition satellite television network.[33]
In February 2004, Cuban announced that he would be working with ABC television to produce a reality television series, The Benefactor. The premise of the six-episode series involved 16 contestants vying to win $1 million by participating in various contests, with their performances being judged by Cuban. It premiered on September 13, 2004 but due to poor ratings was canceled before the full season aired.[34]
Cuban financially supported Grokster in the Supreme Court case, MGM v. Grokster.[35] He is also a partner in Synergy Sports Technology, a web based basketball scouting and video delivery tool, used by many NBA teams.
He has also spearheaded ventures in the social software and Distributed Networking industries. He's an owner of IceRocket, a search engine which scours the blogosphere for content.[36] Cuban was also a partner in RedSwoosh[37]—a company which uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver rich media, including video and software to a user's PC, later acquired by Akamai. He was also an investor in Weblogs, Inc. which was acquired by AOL.[38]
In 2005, Cuban invested in Brondell Inc., a San Francisco startup making a high-tech toilet seat called a Swash that works like a bidet but mounts on a standard toilet. "People tend to approach technology the same way, whether it's in front of them, or behind them," Cuban joked.[39] He also invested in Goowy Media Inc., a San Diego internet software startup. In April 2006, Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Cuban would host his own weekly radio talk show, Mark Cuban's Radio Maverick.[40] However, the show has not materialized.
In July 2006, Cuban financed Sharesleuth.com,[41] a web site created by former St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigative reporter Christopher Carey to uncover fraud and misinformation in publicly traded companies. Experimenting with a new business model for making online journalism financially viable, Cuban disclosed that he would take positions in the shares of companies mentioned in Sharesleuth.com in advance of publication. Business and legal analysts questioned the appropriateness of shorting a stock prior to making public pronouncements which are likely to result in losses in that stock's value. Cuban insisted that the practice is legal in view of full disclosure.[42][43][44] In April 2007, Cuban partnered with Mascot Books to publish his first children's book, Let's Go, Mavs!.
In October 2008, Cuban started Bailoutsleuth.com[45] as a grassroots, online portal for oversight over the US government's $700 billion dollar "bailout" of financial institutions.
In April 2011, Cuban placed Landmark Theatres and Magnolia Pictures up for sale, but he added that he wouldn't sell the companies unless the offer was "very, very compelling."
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