Mark Cuban Quotes

If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

If I can do it, you can do it.

Pay off your debt first. Freedom from debt is worth more than any amount you can earn.

I love the competitive aspect of it [business]. It's like playing chess. Why do people play chess? Knowing the realm of moves? Even when you get to be a chess master, there are other chess masters you want to beat or outperform. And to me business is just a sport that I love to compete in; a continuous intellectual challenge that really motivates me.

There is only one thing in life you can control: Your own effort.

We don't sell wins or losses. The one thing you can't control in sports is which games you are going to win or which games you are going to lose. But what I could control was the experience the fans have.

Every 'No' gets me closer to a 'Yes'.

What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.

Everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than one thing. We are born with it. There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really, really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren't worth a nickel.

When you turn your team upside down and try to figure out what the culture of the team is, you take the greatest risk a team can take.

As I would learn later in life, money makes you extremely handsome.

Expect the unexpected, and always be ready - everyone has inside them what it takes to be successful. You just have to be ready to unleash it when the opportunity presents itself.

The reason I do Shark Tank isn't to try take make more money of the deals, even though every deal I want to make money off of and even more so I want the entrepreneurs to be very successful and make money, but Shark Tank sends a message to everybody that the American Dream is alive and well.

Sweat equity is the best startup capital.

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.

One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. You may think you are more talented then the next guy. Which is exactly what the next guy thinks as well. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself stand out. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths. Always remember that no matter how many times you get shot down, you will get smarter, better and you only have to be right once to be successful.

When you first start working for me, directly for me, I micromanage until I trust you.

Sales is the most important aspect of a company, which in turn is about how well you treat your customer and stay ahead of your customer's requirements.

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I wake up every day just fired up. My one rule is, don't let anyone pinch me, because I don't want to wake up.

I know I'm prejudiced and I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways.

When you've got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be number 10,001?

My days are straight out of the movie Groundhog Day.

When I got to the Mavericks people were all giving me advice - change this, change that - and one thing that I didn't do was fire anybody.

I don't think there's any question that the UFL or any other league that wants to challenge the NFL can have an impact. The demand for professional football is off the charts.

Learn to sell. In business you’re always selling: to your prospects, investors and employees. To be the best salesperson put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you’re selling. Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems.

Nothing can kill the future dreams and goals of a new graduate than 50k of debt like an anvil over your head. I got to Indiana University not because I visited the campus and loved everything about it. I picked Indiana University because I saw a list of the top 10 business schools and it was the cheapest.

I was lucky. I grew up knowing that hard work and smart work has a greater impact on results than being passionate about something.

You need a place where you can explain yourself. You can write as much or as little as you would like, but the words will be all yours. You can create the context. You can make sure that all issues are addressed. You can take issue with individuals or the media as a whole. Your words, your message.

Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people.

I was a beast in college. I worked hard and I played hard. I was relentless learning about business. I actually snuck into MBA classes my freshman and sophomore years. I wanted to challenge myself to see how I compared to the smartest kids at Indiana University so I was 18 and pretended I was an MBA student.

Do the things that make perfect sense to you, [and] don't be afraid to shout it from the mountain tops just because it's outside the box or against the grain in your industry. More often than not, you're probably going to be right.

Wherever there is change, and wherever there is uncertainty, there is opportunity!

A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it's okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they're out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.

I love to compete. I want to get out there and kick your ass in the business world. That is what inspires me.

I don't care what anyone says. Being rich is a good thing.

One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself standout. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths.

Those back-to-back experiences confirmed what I already knew: That I was a shitty-ass employee and I'd better start my own business.

Don't get caught up in how many hours you work. Judge success based on having goals and measuring your results. Hard work, and lots of it, is certainly needed, but focus on what you get done.

Never settle. There is no need to rush.

We can't ever forget that the Internet now is just a staid utility. The exciting platforms are software applications that are very, very simple.

It's not in the dreaming, it's in the doing.

You learn in life that a lot of things are the result of effort, but some things, in terms of scale, are random.

We romanticize entrepreneurshi p so much that people don't do the work. It's not just a dream, not just a goal; it's a lot of hard work. A lot of people are wantrepreneurs, not entrepreneurs.

Sometimes the best properties aren't necessarily the biggest properties.

Being a smart shopper is the first step to getting rich.

But we have to ask ourselves, what's the purpose of the stock market? It's supposed to be a source of capital for growing business. It's lost that purpose.

Being rich is a good thing. Not just in the obvious sense of benefitting you and your family, but in the broader sense. Profits are not a zero sum game. The more you make, the more of a financial impact you can have.

If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons I'm selling your stock. There are enough investment choices here.