Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban looks on during a NBA game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers on January 10, 2023 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA.sells a business, he always sets aside some of the proceeds for one specific purpose: divvying it up among the company's employees.
Cuban started the practice after selling his first company, a software firm called MicroSolutions, for $6 million to CompuServe in 1990. He took 20% of the total sale price, he tells CNBC Make It, and paid it out to 80 employees — which would equate to $15,000 per staffer, if distributed equally. Cuban's co-founding and sale of MicroSolutions marked his first big entrepreneurial success and a triumph over setback: He nearly went broke after" podcast in 2020. It also presented a silver lining, he added: "It made us get our s--- together.", making him a millionaire. "You have to hustle the most when you think it's the darkest," he said.