Mark Cuban | |
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Cuban in San Francisco, California, September 8, 2014
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Born |
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
July 31, 1958
Alma mater |
University of Pittsburgh Indiana University, Bloomington |
Occupation | Owner of Dallas Mavericks part owner of 2929 Entertainment Chairman of AXS TV Owner of Landmark Theatres Television personality Entrepreneur |
Net worth | US$3.2 billion (February 2016) |
Political party | Independent |
Spouse(s) | Tiffany Stewart (m. 2002) |
Children | 3 |
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American businessman, investor, author, television personality, and philanthropist. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks,Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and is the chairman of the HDTV cable network AXS TV. He is also one of the main "shark" investors on the ABC reality 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.
Mark Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Norton Cuban, was an automobile upholsterer while Cuban has described his mother, Shirley, as someone with "a different job or different career goal every other week." He grew up in the suburb of Mount Lebanon, in a Jewish working-class family. His paternal grandfather changed the family name from "Chabenisky" to "Cuban" after his family emigrated from Russia through Ellis Island. His maternal grandparents, who were also Jewish, came from Romania. Cuban's first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes. At age 16, Cuban took advantage of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike by running newspapers from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.
Instead of attending high school for his senior year, he enrolled as a full-time student at the University of Pittsburgh where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity. While attending the University of Pittsburgh, he held a variety of jobs including a bartender, disco dancing instructor, and a party promoter. After one year at the University of Pittsburgh, he transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and graduated from the Kelley School of Business in 1981 with a B.Sc. in Business Administration. He chose Indiana's Kelley School of Business without even visiting the campus because "it had the least expensive tuition of all the business schools on the top 10 list". During college, he had various business ventures, including a bar, disco lessons, and a chain letter.