That Time I Met Super "Shark" Man Mark Cuban and Learned His Key to Success

A few years back, I was helping friends promote their burgeoning business in Santa Monica, California. As part of the activities, they presented their wares at a business expo in that beautiful seaside city, and the one and only Mark Cuban was one of the speakers.

Consequently, I had the chance and meet with Mr. Cuban, and found him to be one of the kindness, least arrogant, most successful business individuals and public personas, celebrities, etc. I have ever encountered.

A Closer Look at Cuban's Life and Career

Mark Cuban, born on July 31, 1958, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, may be known today as an investor, film producer, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and co-owner of 2929 Entertainment, and as one of the "sharks" on ABC's iconic TV reality show, Shark Tank. But he first ventured into business at age 12. He sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive sneakers. A few years later, he earned money by selling stamps and coins. At age 16, Cuban took advantage of a?Pittsburgh Post-Gazette?strike by running newspapers from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.

After he sold stamps door-to-door as a kid and gave disco lessons to help pay his way through Indiana University, Cuban was fired from a software shop for closing a $15,000 sale instead of cleaning up the store.

But that didn't stop him on his way to super success. He soon invested in mission-driven companies such as Luminaid, which provides lighting to disaster areas, and Mahmee, a maternal healthcare tech company.

Then, in 1995, Cuban founded video portal Broadcast.com with fellow Indiana University alum Todd Wagner and, four years later, sold it to Yahoo for $5.7 billion.

Today, Cuban not only owns the NBA's Dallas Mavericks but is the cofounder of Cost Plus Drugs, which he launched in January 2022 with the aim of lowering prescription drug prices.

Conclusion

Somewhere along the line, Mark Cuban learned one of the most important aspects of and keys to not just good business, but life in general: how to be charming and kind. Because he was nothing but cordial and down to earth when I met him, and that's how I observed him to be in all his interactions with everyone he met that day at the business expo in Santa Monica.

[This article is a work of nonfiction based on actual events directly experienced by the author. Though certain facts and information in this article were resourced from various business, entertainment news, and media outlets including Britannica.com, History.com, Forbes.com, and Wikipedia.org.]

About Herbie J Pilato

Herbie J Pilato is a writer, producer, TV personality, and author of over 14 pop-culture/media tie-in/celebrity books. Those include?RETRO ACTIVE TELEVISION , which the?Los Angeles Book Festival?just named?Book of the Year .?Pilato’s other books include?MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY , which Pete Hammond of?Deadline.com?called “…another one of Herbie J Pilato’s all-encompassing biographies.” Peter King of?CBS News Radio?hailed, “Herbie J Pilato is a true ‘keeper of the flame’ for classic TV. With?MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY , he’s given us an extensive, humanizing look at one of the medium’s biggest icons; the good, the bad, and sometimes, the ugly. But it’s real.” Pilato is a former actor who appeared on classic TV shows like?The Golden Girls, and a former NBC Page who worked on?The Tonight Show?starring Johnny Carson. In his book,?NBC & ME: MY LIFE AS A PAGE IN A BOOK ,?Pilato?shares the various experiences of working on several classic TV shows of the 1980s. As the author of two biographies of?Bewitched?TV star Elizabeth Montgomery (TWITCH UPON A STAR? and?THE ESSENTIAL ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY ), Pilato has served as an executive producer, writer, and on-screen commentator for the acclaimed new Reelz TV documentary,?ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY: A BEWITCHED LIFE . Pilato was recently profiled in?Remind Magazine ?(published by?TV Guide), and?Closer Weekly Magazine . In 2019, Pilato hosted and co-executive-produced his own classic TV talk show,?THEN AGAIN WITH HERBIE J PILATO , which streamed on Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime UK, and Shout! Factory TV. Guests included actors Ed Asner, Burt Ward, Cindy Williams, Robert Conrad, David Selby, and more.?In 2013, Pilato founded the?Classic TV Preservation Society?(CTVPS), a formal 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the positive social influence of classic television programming.?For more information, please visit?HerbieJPilato.com .