When people find out you know someone famous they ask you a lot of questions about them. I happen to know Mark Cuban from back in the early days of the Internet, and he was investor in Weblogs Inc. So naturally folks ask me questions about him. The top two questions are 1. “can I have his cell phone number” (note: I’ve known mark 10 years and never talked to him on the phone. He’s an email guy, which is part of why we get along I think) and 2. “is he smart or was he just lucky with Broadcast.com?”

For the answer to question #2 just read his blog (or look at the Mavericks). As you can see from this blog post, he dude is straight-up brilliant (and hard working). I mean, asking your customers to solve your problems in the movie business–and offering the winner a job?! I mean, that’s smart.

Life is really simple as far as I’m concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you’re successful.