When Mark Cuban sells a company, he always sets aside a portion of the proceeds for one specific purpose: to divide it among the company's employees. Cuban wrote on X two weeks ago: "In every company I have sold, I paid bonuses to every employee who was there for more than a year." The larger the acquisition, the bigger the payout. Cuban stated: "330 employees of Broadcast.com became millionaires when the audio streaming service was sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999."
In 1995, Cuban invested in AudioNet and took operational control of it, a streaming platform that later became Broadcast.com. The idea was met with skepticism at a time when the internet was still emerging, as he told CBS's "Sunday Morning" last year. "Nobody was doing it. Cuban said: No one. People thought I was a fool."
**The Yahoo Deal**
Upon selling Broadcast.com, Cuban received a large amount of Yahoo stock, which was considered highly valuable at the time. However, instead of holding onto it, he sold it quickly. In a 2022 interview with GQ, he stated that he was happy with the money he made and suspected that the stock market was overvalued. Months later, the dot-com bubble burst and Yahoo's stock price dropped. Cuban remarked: "It taught me a harsh lesson: When you chase dollars, it never works."
Last year, Cuban sold a majority stake in the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families, who run Las Vegas Sands, in a deal reportedly valuing the franchise at around $3.5 billion. The Associated Press reported at that time that he retained a 27% ownership stake and control over basketball operations.
**Mark Cuban's Net Worth: $5.4 Billion**
The deal ended Cuban's long-standing status as the majority owner in the NBA. In 2000, the new billionaire bought his initial stake in the team for $285 million, without negotiating or trying to lower the price even by a penny. Cuban told "The Draymond Green Show" podcast in an April episode: "It was all about having fun. It was like a dream... I didn't even negotiate, I just said: Yes, whatever."
Cuban's current net worth is estimated at $5.4 billion, according to Forbes.
