Cuban Steps Out

It was a good run, but a star of the 1990s Internet boom has now retreated.

No, we're not talking about Amazon.com, whose stock is tumbling today despite reporting a fourfold gain in earnings, but Mark Cuban, the web entrepreneur.

Cuban, better known today for his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, was eliminated Tuesday night from ABC's Dancing With the Stars, after five weeks on the show with partner Kym Johnson.

"This was an amazing experience," Cuban told People magazine. "Sometimes you just have to strip it all away and put yourself out there and see what happens. When my kids are older I want them to be able to look back and say, 'my dad took risks. I can, too.' "

Cuban, who is 49 and had a hip replaced last summer, received low scores during his time on the show, but he and his partner continued to gain enough votes from viewers to stay on.

Cuban's blog exhorted his readers to vote:

I'm up against all the pretty boys , athletes and entertainers tonight, but the vote counts for 50 pct of our total, so jump on board and vote for us !!"

And thanked those who did.

In his most recent blog post, he says that the media has been increasingly focused on finding vulnerabilities in people.

So perhaps it is best to end with a performance from the man himself:

Jeffrey Cane