Mark Cuban speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Mark Cuban built his fortune in software and internet media, then became better known to the public as the owner of an NBA team and an investor on television. By the summer of 2026 he had added a third line to his record: running an online pharmacy that publishes what it charges for generic drugs.
Cuban was born July 31, 1958, in Pittsburgh. He attended the University of Pittsburgh before transferring to Indiana University Bloomington, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in management from the Kelley School of Business in 1981. In June 2015 he gave $5 million to the university to create the Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology.
From MicroSolutions to Broadcast.com
After college he settled in Dallas and co-founded MicroSolutions, a computer consulting and systems company. He sold it to CompuServe in 1990 for $6 million.
The bigger payoff came later. In 1995 Cuban and Todd Wagner joined Audionet, a company that streamed audio over the internet. It was renamed Broadcast.com in 1998, and in 1999 Yahoo! bought it for $5.7 billion in Yahoo! stock. Yahoo! shut the service down in 2002. The sale made Cuban one of the best-funded individual buyers in American business, and he used that position quickly.
The Mavericks and the media businesses
On January 4, 2000, Cuban bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. for $285 million. The franchise won the NBA championship in 2011. Over the years the league fined him several times for public comments, including $250,000 in June 2006, $600,000 in February 2018 and $500,000 in March 2020.
In late 2023 the NBA approved the sale of a 73 percent controlling interest to Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont. Cuban explained the decision that December. In March 2026 he said he regretted the sale.
Away from basketball, Cuban put money into media and entertainment. Wikipedia lists him as a founder of HDNet and AXS TV, and HDNet Fights, a mixed martial arts series, premiered October 13, 2007. He also owned the Landmark Theatres chain, which he bought in September 2003 and put up for sale in April 2011. In 2007 the internet company Red Swoosh, in which he had invested, was acquired by Akamai for $15 million.
Shark Tank
Cuban joined the ABC series Shark Tank as an investor in 2011, its second season. On the show, entrepreneurs pitch for money from a panel of wealthy backers. He announced in November 2023 that season 16 would be his last, and in May 2025 he said goodbye after 14 years. Business Insider reported that he put about $19.85 million into deals on air. In late 2024 he said he had invested about $20 million across 85 startups and was down overall on those deals.
Cost Plus Drugs
In January 2022 Cuban launched Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, an online pharmacy intended to lower the price of generic medicines. Its model is simple to state: it publishes the cost of a drug plus a set markup. In August 2024 the company published its drug pricing contracts. Reports described partnerships with Humana, in December 2025, and with TrumpRx, in February 2026.
In May 2026 Cuban publicly criticized an insurer that had denied coverage of everolimus, a drug his pharmacy sells for about $30.88.
Public profile
Cuban has been outspoken on politics. He endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, commissioned a poll on an independent run for president ahead of 2020, and endorsed Kamala Harris in September 2024, campaigning for her that October. In June 2025 he said he had turned down an offer to be vetted as her running mate.
TIME named him to its list of the 100 most influential people of 2024, and in April 2025 he was listed for the Texas Business Hall of Fame. He has also written a children’s book, Let’s Go, Mavs! Starring Champ and Cort the Sport (2007), and keeps a blog, Blog Maverick. His brother, Brian Cuban, is an author and advocate. Cuban married in September 2002, and his business career has been based in Dallas since the early 1980s.
Sources: Wikipedia’s Mark Cuban entry and the news reports it cites.
Rosalind Teague covers ocean science, coastal hazards and the people who shaped the central coast.
