Mark Cuban

Shark Tank Biography

Mark Cuban is an investor who lives for his family, his Shark Tank companies and the Dallas Mavericks. He is the owner of the 2011 World Champion Dallas Mavericks and bestselling author of How to Win at the Sport of Business, and was an entrepreneur from the early age of 12 when he sold garbage bags door to door. Today, Cuban is the highly successful entrepreneur and investor with an ever-growing portfolio of businesses.

Named a winner of the GQ Men of the Year in 2006 and included in The New York Times Magazine's Year in Ideas, Cuban is recognized as being among the most influential people in both the cable and sports industries. He may be best known for his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks on January 4, 2000. Under his leadership, the team's home games have become a total entertainment experience. Despite initial criticism, he added much more to the usual game-day experience options, like the Mavericks ManiAACs. His successful efforts have brought a sense of pride and passion to the fans.

Prior to his purchase of the Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading provider of multi-media and streaming on the Internet. Broadcast.com was sold to Yahoo! Inc. in July, 1999. MicroSolutions, a leading national systems integrator, was co-founded by Cuban and partner Martin Woodall in 1983, and later sold to CompuServe.

Currently, Cuban is the founder of AXS TV (www.axs.tv). AXS TV and its sister network, HDNet Movies, are among the only remaining independently owned and operated TV networks in the U.S. and the first in the world to be programmed exclusively in high definition. AXS TV continues to outperform networks owned by much larger corporations and those with greater distribution.

Cuban also co-owns the Landmark Theater chain, Magnolia Pictures and Magnolia Home Video, along with partner Todd Wagner. With the release of the movie Bubble in 2005, Magnolia and Landmark Theaters pioneered the release of the movie's "day and date," meaning the movie was released in theaters, on TV (HDNet Movies) and on DVD all on the same day. Taking this process one step further, Cuban created the "Ultra VOD" platform, releasing movies to video-on-demand on both cable and satellite up to four weeks prior to their release in theaters.

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Shark Comparison

Mark consistently invests more money than the other sharks but sometimes makes fewer overall deals than Lori Greiner. In Season Eight she out both outspent and made more deals than Mark.

Season Six was also an outlier with Robert Herjavec outspending Mark by a significant amount but most of it in a single deal, Zero Pollution Motors.

However, in all other seasons, Mark out-invested the other sharks by a significant amount, including Season Two when he was still merely a Guest Shark.

Additional Information

According to an article in Inc, Mark Cuban made producers for the show remove an onerous clause from their contracts for entrepreneurs. ^[1]

According to the clause, all contestants were required to give Finnmax, Shark Tank's production company, either 2 percent of their profits or 5 percent equity in their company. This rule applied regardless of the deal struck with investors, and all contestants since Season One were obliged to agree to it.

He threatened to leave the show if the clause was not removed and the article stated the "the clause was removed retroactively, meaning every contestant who's appeared on the show since Season One will be relieved of the commitment."

Given the rise in the quality of the deals following this change, it is the opinion of this site that Mark has had an overall positive effect on the show.

Mark has also been a guest on NPRs How I Built This, speaking about how he made his fortune as well as the return he's had with Shark Tank companies and his reasons for continuing with the show.

In Episode 9.18 during the pitch for Rounderbum, Mark revealed that he generally "goes commando" or does not wear underwear.

Footnotes