Mark Cuban Says Being Kinder Made Him a Billionaire
Mark Cuban is an American businessman and a formidable investor on the popular TV series Shark Tank.
He's known for breaking the hearts of the show's contestants with his strong opinions, but he's actually nicer now than he used to be — in his words, anyway.
And he says he regrets that he wasn't kinder when he was younger.
When the podcast Bio Eats World asked him what advice he would give to his younger self, Cuban replied, "I wish somebody would have told me to be nicer."
Cuban was fired from his first job in the software industry for making sure he got a sale worth $15,000, instead of cleaning up the store like he was asked to.
After that, he founded his first company, MicroSolutions, which was sold for $6 million in 1990.
When he was in his 30s, he co-founded another company, AudioNet, an online audio streaming company.
Cuban had a very intense work ethic, which made his employees unhappy.
One of his business partners even told him that he was scaring people and they were going to quit.
Cuban realized that he needed to change his ways, and said he had to learn the "underrated" skill of being nice. He believes that it helped him to be more successful.
AudioNet later became Broadcast.com, and in 1998 Cuban sold it to Yahoo for about $5.7 billion.
Mark Cuban's story is a reminder that kindness is an important skill that can help you succeed in business.
And research says the same thing.
A 2022 study from Garter found that when employees are treated with kindness and respect, they are more likely to be happy and work harder, which can lead to lower turnover rates and higher profits for businesses.
So it pays to be kind — literally!
