Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur known for his success with the Dallas Mavericks and his time on Shark Tank, once faced a moment that nearly destroyed his young company. In a candid conversation, Cuban shared the story of how a trusted employee almost left his business completely bankrupt — taking $82,000 out of the $84,000 they had in the bank.
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It all happened in the early days of Cuban’s first company, MicroSolutions. Back then, Cuban and his small team were surviving on a tight budget, making every dollar count.
He recalls the moment he got a call from the bank that would send chills down any entrepreneur's spine. The receptionist at MicroSolutions, Renee Hardy, had a pretty straightforward job: prepare the vendor payments, seal them in envelopes, and drop them at the post office.
However, she had other plans. Instead of sending the payments to their rightful places, she used a trick as old as time — Wite-Out. She covered up the payees’ names and wrote her own, taking those checks straight to the bank.
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“I got a call from the bank saying, ‘Sir, this woman just came through the drive-thru and the checks were whited out,'” Cuban said, still amazed by the memory. He asked if they had cashed them, and the response made his heart sink: “Of course we did, we’re a bank, sir.” Just like that, she had drained $82,000 — almost everything MicroSolutions had at the time.
“We were flat broke,” Cuban said. Cuban faced a crisis that might have permanently shut down the company, with just $2,000 remaining in the bank and vendor payments already bouncing. He had to give each vendor a call, lay out the circumstances, and implore them to cooperate with his company.
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Fortunately, they agreed, giving Cuban and his team some breathing room. They persisted, and the small business would go on to become one of Cuban’s first big achievements.
“Then I was mad,” he says, and shared that they couldn’t find her to press charges and how “no one’s found her since.”
But despite the setback, Cuban remained optimistic about people. Instead of letting this experience turn him bitter, he used it as fuel. “People steal,” he said bluntly, but added, “It's a good problem to have — it means you've got it.”
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