Tuesday, technology entrepreneur and star of ABC's "Shark Tank" Mark Cuban had a deep piece of insight to share with one of his 7.88 million Twitter followers — and it was only four words long.
When a follower asked Cuban, "What is the meaning of life in 4 words or less?" the billionaire responded.
"Life is half random," Cuban wrote.
At least that's been Cuban's experience — finding success took a combination of luck and hard work, he says.
"Being a billionaire requires a lot of luck, a lot of great timing," Cuban admits during an interview on "The Jamie Weinstein Show" podcast. Cuban became a billionaire after selling his company Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion to Yahoo, "at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 1999," The New York Times reports.
But luck isn't all it takes.
"I tell people all the time, the one thing in life you can control is your effort," Cuban says on the podcast.
For Cuban, that meant using every resource possible to learn about technology before launching his first company, MicroSolutions at age 25.
"I remember reading the PC DOS manual (I really did), and being proud that I could figure out how to set up startup menus for my customers," Cuban says on his blog. "I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, $3 for a magazine, $20 for a book. One good idea that led to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over.
"A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys, just because I put in the time to learn all I could," he explains.
Then, when Cuban sold MicroSolutions for a reported $6 million in 1990, naysayers assumed the success was only happenstance.
"I can remember vividly people telling me how lucky I was to sell my business at the right time," he writes. "Of course, no one wanted to comment on how lucky I was to spend time reading software manuals, or Cisco Router manuals, or sitting in my house testing and comparing new technologies."
In order to be lucky, you need to be prepared first, according to Cuban.
"You have to work hard, and try to put yourself in a position where if luck strikes, you can see the opportunity and take advantage of it," Cuban says.
For him, the key for success in life has been to put in the work and be persistent: "All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are."
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Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."