For some workers, getting fired can feel like a career-ending setback. For billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, it became one of the most valuable business lessons of his life.
During a conversation released Friday with former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, the former Dallas Mavericks owner reflected on the early jobs he lost before building his first successful company, MicroSolutions.
“I got fired from jobs and I realized I wasn’t a very good employee,” Cuban said.
Cuban said the problem wasn’t that he lacked skills but that he often clashed with managers because he thought he knew better than they did.
“I didn’t get fired because I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I got fired because I was like, always trying to do too much, or I thought I was too smart.”
The former “Shark Tank” investor said those experiences ultimately became some of the most valuable lessons of his career.
“I learned more from the jobs that I hated,” Cuban said. “As an entrepreneur, I learned what not to do.”
Lessons from bad jobs
Cuban grew up in a working-class family in Pittsburgh and spent his teenage years hustling through a long list of jobs. He sold garbage bags door-to-door, worked behind the counter at Isaly’s, laid carpet, and worked as a box boy at a discount store downtown.
He said every role, even the ones that ended badly, taught him something.
“I always looked at it — it wasn’t a great job, but I was getting paid to learn, and I learned a lot,” Cuban said.
That mindset became especially important after he was fired and decided to start MicroSolutions, the software company he founded in the 1980s and sold in 1990 for $6 million.
“When I finally got fired from a job and started my first real company, MicroSolutions, I knew I didn’t know everything, there was a lot I needed to learn,” Cuban said. “But I learned some things about what not to do from the bosses that fired me.”
The billionaire said failure and setbacks are unavoidable in both business and life, but entrepreneurs shouldn’t let them stop them from taking risks.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail,” he said. “You only gotta be right one time.”
What experts say you should do after getting fired
Cuban’s comments come as many workers grapple with job insecurity in a cooling labor market shaped by layoffs, AI disruption, and rising performance expectations.
Career coaches and labor experts told Business Insider earlier in 2026 that, when getting fired, workers should avoid reacting emotionally, take time to process the setback, and focus on what they can learn from the experience rather than letting the loss define their career.
For Cuban, setbacks ultimately became part of the learning curve that helped shape his career.
“For entrepreneurs specifically, I tell them, and this is from [legendary college basketball coach] Bobby Knight, I stole it for him: Everybody’s got the will to win, but it’s only those with the will to prepare that do win,” Cuban said.
