MAVERIC . K

BLOCKCHAIN, BASKETBALL, BROADCAST.COM: MARK CUBAN HAS NEVER LOST HIS PASSION FOR DISRUPTION. NOW THE BILLIONAIRE ENTREPRENEUR HAS AN AMBITIOUS PLAN TO TAKE ON BIG PHARMA AND LOWER THE COST OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ONCE AND FOR ALL. AND, AFTER 13 SEASONS, THIS SAVVY SHARK MAY FINALLY BE READY TO LEAVE THE TANK.

- JEMIMA MCEVOY

Mark Cuban unlocks his phone and opens his inbox, which is pinging like crazy as email after email fills the screen. "Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam," he says, swiping each into the garbage with barely a moment's thought.

One with the subject line A Desperate Plea”: delete. Next, an email about a crypto project he’s working on— Cuban agreed to buy the digital rights to drawings by one of the World Trade Center architects and is planning to turn them into NFTs. He squints. The type’s too small. Next. Finally, an email from an aspiring entrepreneur. His first act of mercy: I like these guys. I'll save them for later.”

Cuban in real life is not that much different from the role he’s played for 11 years—or in TV math, 13 seasons—on Shark Tank. He listens to everyone, at least briefly, before making snap judgments. His personal email address is public [e-mail]), and the billionaire investor slogs through every scam, spam message or pitch sent his way. Why? He can’t help it. To me it’s the sport I get to compete in and I get to be really good at,” he says, grinning. I'll be 110 years old still doing whatever is the equivalent 50 years from now of responding to email.”

Cuban, the entrepreneur, has founded more than ten companies, starting in 1983 with software reseller MicroSolutions and up to Cost Plus Drugs, the public benefit corporation he started in January 2022, which aims to lower prescription drug prices. Cuban, the insta-billionaire, sold Broadcast.com, an internet sports radio outfit, to Yahoo for 5.7 billion at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 1999 a few years later, Yahoo shuttered the service). Cuban, the investor, has poured at least 25 million into crypto concerns including dogecoin, the currency famously started as a joke) and taken stakes in at least 400 startups, many through Shark Tank.