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Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban became a millionaire at the age of 32 and then a billionaire at the age of 40. Sounds like a pretty well-sorted life, right? Well, it wasn’t always a bed of roses for him.
The 65-year-old, who is currently a billionaire with $5.1 billion in net worth (as per Forbes), used to live in an apartment with five other guys and sleep on the floor. Cuban also sold stamps door-to-door and gave disco lessons to pay for his college.
And that’s not all. He even vividly remembers the moment he realised he was nearly broke.
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When Mark Cuban Nearly Went Broke
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He was 27 years old, trying his hand at entrepreneurship with a software company called MicroSolutions, when he plugged his PIN into an ATM and got a rude awakening, he said recently, as per a CNBC report.
His company only had $2,000 left in the bank. All that had happened due to his secretary, who had been stealing from him by using white-out and a typewriter to forge company cheques, The secretary took about $82,000, effectively wiping out MicroSolutions’ account balance.
That meant Cuba’s own money was nearly gone, too. He had bootstrapped MicroSolutions almost entirely, only accepting external funding in the form of a $500 advance from a former customer.
“It was f***ed up, but [it was] the best thing that ever happened to us because it made us get our s**t together,” Cuban had said, adding that all he could do was try to remain calm and get back to work: “You have to hustle the most when you think it’s the darkest.”
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How He Bounced Back To Become A Millionaire And Then A Billionaire
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Well, it didn’t take long for Cuban to recover the cash and bounce back. His day-to-day work wasn’t always glamorous. He spent hours delving into software and Cisco router manuals and “sitting in my house testing and comparing new technologies.”
All that hustle, coupled with the fact that he was selling software around the time home computers became popular, finally paid off when Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990. He was 32 years old when he became a millionaire.
Cuban then helped co-found AudioNet, which became Broadcast.com and was acquired by Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, making Cuban a billionaire at age 40. He also
owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
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“Can Happily Live Without 99% Of My Wealth”
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Earlier this year, the American billionaire said that he would be just as happy today without as much as 99% of his wealth. When asked in an interview if he would be happy with “1% of what you’re worth,” Cuban replied, “Yes. If I had my same family and everything, for sure.”
Well, 1% of Mark Cuban’s wealth at that time, which was $4.6 billion, turned out to be $46 million, which is still a lot more than most people ever see in their lifetime.
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