Britannica Money (2024)

Mark Cuban, 2013.

© Jaguarps/Dreamstime.com

born:
July 31, 1958, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. (age 65)

Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, businessman and television personality who cofounded (1995) Broadcast.com, an Internet audio and video streaming service, and who was active in numerous other companies. He also purchased the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association and frequently appeared on the reality TV show Shark Tank.

(Read Mark Cuban’s Britannica essay on NFTs.)

Cuban grew up in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and early displayed an affinity for business. At the age of 12 he reportedly began selling garbage bags in his neighbourhood. The success of that venture led him to sell other items door-to-door. During his junior year in high school, Cuban began taking evening classes at the University of Pittsburgh, and he used those credits to graduate from high school early. After his freshman year at Pitt, he transferred to Indiana University (IU) in order to pursue a business degree. Following his graduation in 1980, Cuban moved back to Pittsburgh, where he briefly worked for Mellon Bank.

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By the early 1980s Cuban was living in Texas, working for a computer software company. He reportedly was fired from that job after his employer asked him to clean rather than complete a sale. Soon thereafter Cuban founded MicroSolutions, a computer consulting service. In 1990 he sold the company to CompuServe for $6 million. Over the next several years he founded the venture capital firm Radical Computing, Inc., and took acting classes in Los Angeles. After returning to Dallas in 1994, he and Todd Wagner, a friend from IU, lamented the fact that they were unable to listen to Indiana’s basketball games. This led the duo in 1995 to found AudioNet (later Broadcast.com), which offered various live programming online. Hugely successful, the company went public in 1998, and the following year it was sold to Yahoo! for about $5.7 billion. (Sold at the height of the dot-com bubble, Broadcast.com was later discontinued.)

The deal made Cuban a billionaire, and he began acquiring a number of companies from a wide range of fields. In addition, in 2003 he and Wagner cofounded 2929 Entertainment, which developed and produced films. Cuban’s later ventures included Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs (2022), which sold prescriptions at a lower price. He also invested in various start-ups, and in 2011 he began appearing on Shark Tank, a reality TV show in which entrepreneurs present inventions to a panel of potential investors. In 2011 Cuban published How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It as an e-book; it was expanded and released as a book in 2013.

A longtime basketball fan, Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA in 2000. He quickly became known as one of the league’s most outspoken owners and one of the most generous. Cuban notably upgraded the team’s facilities and offered various perks to players that made Dallas an attractive location for free agents. After losing in the NBA finals in 2006, the Mavericks won the championship in 2011.

Amy Tikkanen

Britannica Money (2024)

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Only 15 % of our revenue comes from Britannica content. The other 85% comes from learning and instructional materials we sell to the elementary and high school markets and consumer space. We have been profitable for the last eight years.

What is the oldest form of money? ›

Barter system was the oldest system of money where goods were exchanged for goods and there was no common medium of exchange in the economy. Under this system, people exchanged commodities for commodities to satisfy their wants.

What are four types of money? ›

Different 4 types of money
  • Fiat money – the notes and coins backed by a government.
  • Commodity money – a good that has an agreed value.
  • Fiduciary money – money that takes its value from a trust or promise of payment.
  • Commercial bank money – credit and loans used in the banking system.
Jul 11, 2023

What are the functions of money Britannica? ›

In standard economic theory, money is held to have four functions: to serve as a medium of exchange universally accepted in return for goods and services; to act as a measure of value, making possible the operation of the price system and the calculation of cost, profit, and loss; to serve as a standard of deferred ...

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What is the strongest currency in the world? ›

The Kuwaiti dinar is the strongest currency in the world, with 1 dinar buying 3.26 dollars (or, put another way, $1 equals 0.31 Kuwaiti dinar). Kuwait is located on the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and the country earns much of its wealth as a leading global exporter of oil.

What is the oldest currency still in use today? ›

The British pound is the world's oldest currency still in use at around 1,200 years old. Dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, the pound has gone through many changes before evolving into the currency we recognise today. The British pound is both the oldest and one of the most traded currencies​ in the world.

What is the youngest currency in the world? ›

Nineteen European nations use the euro as their official currency. It is the youngest currency. There are about 25 countries that tie their currencies to the euro, even though the euro is not pegged with any other currency.

What are the 4 rules of money? ›

The Four Fundamental Rules of Personal Finance

Spend less than you make. Spend way less than you make, and save the rest. Earn more money. Make your money earn more money.

What is animal money? ›

1. Animal money: in protohistoric period 'animal money' was used as a means of exchange, e.g. cow sheep goat etc. however due to their indivisible nature, commodity money came into existence.

Which is the most liquid form of money? ›

Cash and Cash Equivalents

Cash is the most liquid asset possible as it is already in the form of money. This includes physical cash, savings account balances, and checking account balances.

Who invented money? ›

Historians generally agree that the Lydians were the first to make coins. However, in recent years, Chinese archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a coin production mint located in China's Henan Province thought to date to 640 B.C. In 600 B.C., Lydia began minting coins widely used for trading.

How did people live before money? ›

Before the creation of money, exchange took place in the form of barter, where people traded to get the goods and services they wanted. Two people, each having something the other wanted, would agree to trade one another. In economics, we call this a double coincidence of wants.

Who invented paper money? ›

The first known banknote was first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang dynasty (618–907), as merchants and wholesalers desired to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.

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Britannica's products have over 7 billion page views annually and are used by more than 150 million students, the website shows. Chief Executive Officer Jorge Cauz said in an interview in September 2022 the company would have revenue that year approaching $100 million.

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In January 1996, the Britannica was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra, who serves as its current chair of the board. In 1997, Don Yannias, a long-time associate and investment advisor of Safra, became CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated.

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