Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958 in Pittsburgh) is an American billionaire entrepreneur The Dot-Com Billionaire: Mark Cuban. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA basketball team NBA biography, and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network .

Biography

Mark Cuban (his family's last name was shortened from Chabenisky when his grandparents immigrated to America) grew up in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh in a working class family. His father Norton was an automobile upholsterer . Cuban's first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags in order to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes The Maverick. While in school, he held a variety of jobs, including bartending, disco dancing instructor, and party promotion. He paid for college by collecting and selling stamps, and once gained about $1,100 from starting a chain letter .

Rather than attending high school for his senior year, Cuban enrolled as a full time student at the University of Pittsburgh. After one year at the University of Pittsburgh, he transferred to Indiana University's Bloomington, Indiana campus and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration .

Family and personal interests

In September 2002, Cuban married Tiffany Stewart (1972), an advertising executive. They married in a private ceremony in Barbados Fact: date=September 2008 , with a wedding reception at the Mavericks' home, the American Airlines Center. Their daughter Alexis Sofia was born 25 Sept 2005. The family lives in the lavish Preston Hollow area of Dallas, in a 24,000 square foot mansion 1, that Cuban bought on sale for $13 million.

In June 2007, Cuban underwent hip replacement surgery.

Early career

In 1982, Cuban moved to Dallas, Texas. Cuban first found work as a bartender,Blog Maverick: Success and Motivation, You only have to be right once! then as a salesperson for Your Business Software, one of the first PC software retailers in Dallas. He was terminated less than a year later for not opening the store on time, at the time he was out making a sales call for a large software purchase with a customer .

Cuban started a company, MicroSolutions, with support from his previous customers from Your Business Software. MicroSolutions was initially a system integrator and software reseller. The company was an early proponent of technologies such as Carbon Copy, Lotus Notes, and CompuServe . One of the company's largest clients was Perot Systems . In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServethen a subsidiary of H&R Blockfor $6 million . He retained approximately $2 million after taxes on the deal .