Mark Cuban Says $82,000 Theft Was The 'Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us'

Employee theft is never a good thing, but there's always a lesson to be learned. And when it comes to business, there aren't many people more inclined to learn from their setbacks than Mark Cuban.

At age 27, Cuban was building a software company called MicroSolutions when he visited the bank and realized that his company only had $2,000 left.

It didn't take him long to figure out what happened. In an episode of the podcast "Pardon My Take," he explained how his receptionist used correction fluid and a typewriter to steal $82,000.

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"[She] whites it out, puts her name on it, takes it to the bank, the bank cashes it. So, within one day, we went from having $84,000 in the bank to having $2,000 in the bank," Cuban said.

While Cuban did his best to retrieve the money, it was gone for good. It was at that point that he had two options: forge ahead or roll over and hope for the best. 

"It was f**ked up," Cuban said. "But the best thing that ever happened to us because it made us get our sh*t together. And then that company turned into a $30 million company that turned into another company that turned into streaming that turned into the Mavs."

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Five years later, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million. From there, he cofounded AudioNet, later known as Broadcast.com, which was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. for $5.7 billion roughly 10 years later. 

Cuban went from nearly broke after the theft to billionaire in less than 15 years. 

"Even when you have every i dotted and every t crossed, something is going to go wrong," Cuban said during an Oxford Union Q&A session. "And when it does, you just have to fight through it and grind through it. Remember what it is that makes you special and what it is that makes you confident to do what you do, and do more of it."

Today, anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit can start a business. You can also invest in startups online through crowdfunding platforms like StartEngine. If you start today, you could be a millionaire within five years, just like Cuban. 

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