In 1990 Mark Cuban sold MicroSolutions for $2 million and ditched his watch
He took off his watch the day of the sale to work on his own time.
The short version
- The milestone launched his journey toward a fortune now estimated above $10 billion.
- He later bought the Dallas Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million and sold a majority stake for $3.5 billion.
Mark Cuban sold his software company MicroSolutions for about $2 million in 1990 and immediately took off his watch, according to The Times of India. Cuban recalled the moment on a podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett, saying he swore he would never wear a watch again because it meant working on someone else's schedule.
The sale marked the beginning of his journey toward a fortune now estimated at more than $10 billion. Wealth was never the primary objective for Cuban, who said his goal was achieving independence and having complete control over his time. He grew up in a working-class family outside Pittsburgh, attended Indiana University, and started MicroSolutions after being fired from a software sales job in Dallas.
After selling the company, Cuban bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines instead of reinvesting the cash right away. Much more money followed when he co-founded Broadcast.com and sold it to Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion in stock. That deal took his net worth past $1 billion and freed him from having to hustle for his next move.
That freedom let him buy the Dallas Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million, a team he ran for over two decades before selling a majority stake in late 2023 in a deal Fortune puts at $3.5 billion. Today he focuses on Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, a company he started in 2022 to sell generic prescription drugs directly to consumers.
Although he eventually softened his no-watch rule to wear an Apple Watch for fitness data, he said the thinking behind the gesture remains central to how he approaches life and business.
Figures as reported by The Times of India.
