Jau Millennia

Mark Cuban says his receptionist stole $82,000 of the $84,000 his company had in the bank. When the bank called, he thought they’d caught her in time. “You didn’t cash them, did you?” “Of course we did. We’re a bank, sir.” This was at MicroSolutions, his first company. The receptionist was supposed to put checks for their suppliers in envelopes and take them to the post office. She used white-out to cover the recipients’ names, wrote in her own, and cashed the checks at the bank’s drive-through. The company had $2,000 left. The suppliers were still waiting for their money. Cuban and his partner had to call them and explain what had happened. They asked for time and promised they would get paid. The suppliers agreed to work with them. The business survived. In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million. Shannon Sharpe asks whether they pressed charges. Cuban says they couldn’t find her. As far as he knows, nobody ever did. He’s a billionaire now, but when he tells this story, he still spells out her name. I can understand why. The bank called him about checks with the recipients’ names covered in white-out, then explained that it had already paid them. Would you have trusted that bank again?