Mark Cuban Reveals the Job That Taught Him the Most: 4 Lessons You Can Learn
Written by
Brooke Barley
Edited by
Caitlyn Moorhead
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Mark Cuban’s most influential job was selling garbage bags.
The billionaire businessman and one of the main sharks on “Shark Tank” recently sat down with Jeff Flake, the director of the Institute of Politics at Arizona State University. During their chat for the Future Sun Devils YouTube channel, Cuban talked about when he was 12 and he started selling boxes of garbage bags door-to-door for a friend of his father’s. He would buy the boxes for $3 each and sell them for $6. “I learned more about business from doing that than anything in my entire life,” Cuban said.
Since then, Cuban has had many roles as a businessman. Here are some of the most valuable lessons he’s learned that he wants to pass down to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Create Your Own Way
Some of the best innovations come from a series of obstacles. Cuban talked about how he wanted to take a senior level economics class in high school when he was 16, but the school wouldn’t allow him to because he wasn’t a senior. Instead of waiting until he was a senior, Cuban looked into night classes at a nearby college. Although the college didn’t have the classes he was looking for, he took others they had, did fairly well and then dropped out of high school and enrolled in college. Though “high school dropout” isn’t synonymous with “billionaire businessman,” it’s actually what allowed Cuban to get a jumpstart on his career and start building his empire.
Make Connections
When Cuban started college, he snuck into an MBA statistics class that was taught by a man named Wayne Winston. Decades later after Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban ran into Winston at a game. Winston told Cuban that he could analyze lineups in a way that nobody else in the NBA was doing, and, consequently, help the Mavericks win more games.
“He became the first full-time analytics guy in the NBA. We won so many games because of his lineups. You just never know how things are going to turn out,” Cuban said.
Embrace Change
Cuban called AI one of the greatest tools ever created. He acknowledged that AI has completely changed the landscape of what’s possible, and that the fear some industries have around AI ultimately won’t serve them. Instead, he urged them to embrace changing technology and use it to their advantage.
“Every tool is a tool that gives you a competitive advantage. There’s going to be two types of companies in this world: those who are great at AI, and everybody else that they put out of business. You have no choice. You have to know it.”
Stay Curious
Cuban remarked that keeping an open mind and desire to learn more throughout one’s career is key to evolving with the times. Staying curious also opens up one’s mind to possible business opportunities that would have gone unnoticed with someone who’s just sticking to the traditional way of doing things. “You’ve got to be curious because if you’re not aware of these things, then you just have tunnel vision. Life is going to pass you by.”
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