Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American businessman and investor. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association (NBA)\'s Dallas Mavericks, co-owner of 2929 Entertainment and chairman of AXS TV. He is also one of the main "shark" investors on the ABC reality television series, Shark Tank. In 2011, Cuban wrote an e-book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, in which he chronicles his experiences in business and sports.\n', '

Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Norton Cuban, was an automobile upholsterer, while Cuban has described his mother, Shirley, as someone with "a different job or different career goal every other week." He grew up in the suburb of Mount Lebanon, in a Jewish working-class family. His paternal grandfather changed the family name from "Chabenisky" to "Cuban" after his family emigrated from Russia through Ellis Island. His maternal grandparents, who were also Jewish, came from Romania. Cuban\'s first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes. At age 16, Cuban took advantage of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike by running newspapers from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.\n', '

Instead of attending high school for his senior year, he enrolled as a full-time student at the University of Pittsburgh, where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity. While attending the University of Pittsburgh, he held a variety of jobs, including a bartender, disco dancing instructor, and a party promoter. He is a "beloved" fan of Pittsburgh\'s NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. After one year at the University of Pittsburgh, he transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and graduated from the Kelley School of Business in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Management. He chose Indiana\'s Kelley School of Business without even visiting the campus because "it had the least expensive tuition of all the business schools on the top 10 list". During college he had various business ventures, including a bar, disco lessons, and a chain letter.\n', '

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