Mark Cuban got the middle seat on his first flight as a billionaire – CNBC

Selling a company for billions of dollars didn’t immediately upgrade Mark Cuban’s life. In fact, the longtime entrepreneur, investor and “Shark Tank” star found himself in the middle seat of an airplane while going to Las Vegas to celebrate his windfall.”When I sold my company for billions of dollars, to go and celebrate, I was on a Southwest flight,” Cuban told ABC News earlier this year. “I was in the center seat facing the wrong way on the plane thinking, ‘This is just perfect.'”In 1999, Cuban and his Broadcast.com co-founders sold their company to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in stock. Instead of letting it go to his head, Cuban said, a simple concept kept him grounded.”The wisest advice I ever got was ‘live like a student,'” Cuban said. “That served me a long, long time.”That meant continuing to live a low-key lifestyle, which “took away a lot” of risk and uncertainty in his financial life. In an email to CNBC Make It, Cuban confirmed that he “didn’t change much after selling my first company” — keeping the same car, house and even furniture.But Cuban did splurge on one luxury item, which meant his days of sitting in the middle seat didn’t…
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