"I figured when I came back he'd be thrilled to death, right? Fired me on the spot," Cuban said on The Thrive Global Podcast in 2017.īut "being fired from that job was the determining factor in my business life," Cuban wrote in a 2013 Forbes piece. And I thought, 'Okay, I'm gonna let know that I've got everything taken care of, someone's watching my shift if you will, and I'm gonna go pick up a $10,000 check.'
Aha moment story software#
It was a software retail store - I had to sweep the floor, make sure the windows were clean, make sure the store was open on time - and I had a big deal I wanted to close. "I got fired because wanted me to open up the store. O'Leary's "Shark Tank" co-star Mark Cuban, also realized after being fired that he would make a better entrepreneur than employee.Īfter graduation from Indiana University in 1981, Cuban said on "Shark Tank" that he " quit or fired from three straight jobs, including a sales gig at a software retail store called Your Business Software.
I realized I don't want anybody to tell me what to do, and the only way I could do that is work for myself. "I've told that story countless times," he says. "It's a very secure job if you're a good employee," says O'Leary. That's not to say being an employee is a bad thing. O'Leary says it made him realize that there are people who own the store and people who work in the store, and "you have to decide which one that you are. But for O'Leary, being fired wasn't a bad thing.