Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban turned a string of shrewd bets, from dot-com windfalls to NBA ownership to a cut-rate pharmacy, into one of America's most recognizable billionaire brands.
Mark Cuban is a Dallas-based entrepreneur, investor, and former owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. Born in Pittsburgh in 1958, he built his first fortune selling MicroSolutions, a software reseller, then hit the jackpot when he co-founded Broadcast.com and sold it to Yahoo for roughly $5.7 billion in stock during the peak of the dot-com boom in 1999.
He became a household name in two ways: first as the loud, courtside-sitting Mavericks owner who won an NBA championship in 2011 and clashed memorably with the league; then as a sharp-tongued “shark” on ABC’s Shark Tank, where he appeared for 16 seasons before departing in 2023. His bluntness, calling out bad business plans and making instant offers, made him the show’s most-watched investor.
Cuban sold his majority stake in the Mavericks to the Adelson family in 2023 for a reported $3.5 billion. His most recent high-profile venture is Cost Plus Drugs, a pharmacy startup that sells generic medications at transparent, drastically reduced prices, arguably his most consumer-friendly move yet.
He is publicly outspoken on politics, business, and technology, which keeps him permanently trending on social media. Search interest spikes whenever he feuds with Donald Trump, takes a stance on a public issue, or makes a splashy business move.