(TheStreet) - It's hard not to recognize Mark Cuban in a room full of billionaires.
He is one of the rare self-made people who has always known how to stand out.
If we were to conduct a poll asking what people remember about the businessman, whom some are encouraging to run in the 2024 presidential election, most of the answers would probably be around the following:
It's the "Shark Tank," named after the very popular TV show, connecting entrepreneurs and renowned investors. In this ABC show, Cuban distinguished himself with his frankness and his energy. These qualities made him endearing and reassuring to entrepreneurs. They did not only have an attentive investor at their side, but also someone who would advise them when they made mistakes.
Cuban has shown that he is not ashamed to acknowledge the mistakes he made and the losses he incurred.
"On a cash basis I'm down on my shark tank investments," he admitted last July.
From Sport Fan to Crypto Evangelist
For other people, and especially for sports fans, Cuban's name is a synonymous to the National Basketball Association and specifically to the Dallas Mavericks franchise, which he has owned since 2000.
Cuban bought the franchise for less than $280 million. The Mavericks are worth $2.7 billion at last check, according to Forbes. Under Cuban, the franchise won its first and only NBA championship in 2011
NBA fans love his energy, sitting courtside during games.
For disrupters, Mark Cuban is a crypto evangelist. The billionaire is involved in several crypto projects, including the very select Bored Ape Yacht Club, which represents a collection of over 10,000 online images of monkeys striking funny poses. Bored Apes are the most expensive non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
They will also add that he's an Ethereum maximalist, which means that he strongly believes in the potential of the second largest crypto ecosystem after Bitcoin. Ethereum is considered the internet of the crypto space, the young industry that wants to disrupt traditional financial services.
The platform makes it possible to develop different uses of the Blockchain technology, ranging from NFTs to smart contracts. A smart contract is a piece of computer code that determines the terms of a transaction (loans, trading, etc.) and doesn't rely on any third party.
Finally, some will say that the investor is above all someone who has always known what was needed to make a difference in technology. According to a 2007 Fortune magazine profile, Cuban's father worked in a leather shop for the automotive industry. In 1983, the entrepreneur and Martin Woodall, a former Texas Instruments executive, founded a company called MicroSolutions, which was sold in 1990 for $6 million.
Five years later, he and lawyer Todd Wagner founded Broadcast.com, a platform for streaming radio broadcasts over the internet and sold the company in 1999 to Yahoo! Inc for $5 billion. He made more than $1 billion from the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And Then Big Pharma
But everyone will probably be surprised to learn that Cuban prefers to be remembered about something else. It's something very recent, Cost Plus Drugs, an online pharmacy that he co-founded earlier this year, to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. If you don't want to be strangled by the cost of your medications, go to Costs Plus Drugs, the firm says.
"People having to choose between medication, housing, and food — that’s just not right,” the billionaire told Katie Couric Media in an interview. "That’s why this is so important to me.”
"This is what I want to be remembered for," he added.
The Cost Plus Drug Company is the only firm to which Cuban has attached his name, which shows the importance of this venture for the entrepreneur. Indeed, the full name of the firm is Mark Cuban CostPlus Drug Company.
Cost Plus Drug Company "fills and delivers prescriptions at cost plus a fixed 15% margin," the company said on its website.
For example, a 30-count supply of 400mg Imatinib, a drug that treats leukemia and other types of cancer, will cost $39 the firm says. The retail price at other companies is $9,657.30. You save $9,618.30.
Cuban is able to provide these kind of prices because there's no middleman. Cost Plus Drug Company negotiates directly with drug manufacturers.
"In 2020 alone, Medicare could have spent $3.6 billion less on generic acid-reflux, cancer and other drugs if purchased through Cost Plus Drug Company, a new online pharmacy backed by Mark Cuban," found a study from Harvard Medical School researchers.
By Luc Olinga
October 16, 2022
