Cuban is the co-founder of Broadcast.com, the internet streaming service he sold to Yahoo! for $4.8 billion in 1999. The billionaire, who appears on investor-themed reality show "Shark Tank," is a co-owner of NBA franchise the Dallas Mavericks and has stakes in movie cinemas, television channels and technology startups.
Cuban's fortune is derived from his share of the sale of publicly traded Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $4.8 billion in 1999. He owned 28% of the business, according to Broadcast.com's 1998 initial offering prospectus. The value of his after-tax proceeds today are based on an analysis of asset sales and purchases, taxes and market performance.
Cuban agreed to sell a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, a National Basketball Association team, at a valuation of about $3.5 billion in November 2023. The Mavericks are valued at $4.03 billion in a December 2023 report by valuation consultants Sportico. Cuban confirmed that he retains a 27% stake following the sale, according to a media report.
The value of his stakes in a variety of closely held companies are included within cash and other assets.
Cuban declined to comment on his net worth.
Cuban was born in Pittsburgh in 1958. His father worked at a car upholstery shop, and urged his son to go door-to-door selling trash bags to earn spending money, according to a 2007 Fortune profile. Before long, he was peddling stamps, coins and baseball cards. While attending Indiana University, Cuban bought and ran a bar before it was shut down for serving underage customers.
The young entrepreneur joined Mellon Bank after graduating in 1980, but soon left for the personal computer business. Along with former Texas Instruments executive Martin Woodall, he founded computer hardware and software company MicroSolutions in 1983. H & R Block's CompuServe unit bought the company for $6 million in 1990.
Cuban then teamed up with lawyer Todd Wagner to create Broadcast.com in 1995, a site that streamed radio broadcasts over the Internet. The company went public in 1998 in an offering that generated the largest first-day gain in Wall Street history at the time, according to the New York Times.
The pair sold Broadcast.com Inc. to Yahoo! Inc. for $5 billion in 1999. Cuban personally made more than $1 billion from the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
He used his new wealth to buy the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million in 2000. The team won the NBA Championship in 2011. The billionaire is also a well-known television personality. He competed on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" in 2007, and has appeared on "Shark Tank," an investor reality series, since 2012.
Cuban sold a majority stake in the Mavericks for about $3.5 billion in November 2023. He confirmed in December 2023 that he retained a 27% stake in the Dallas-based team following the sale.