We were lucky to catch up with Greg MICEK recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Greg, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
I am a tax attorney, originally hired by Touche Ross, now Deloitte, in 1980 in Omaha, Nebraska as a newly minted graduate of Creighton University. Two years later, the Houston branch of Touche recruited me to become a rain-maker for small business market. In January, 1983, I hosted a conference at the University of Houston called “The Yellow Brick Road to Growth”, based on a newly passed US Congress legislation mandating every federal agency setting aside 5% of its budget to support small business innovations within its mandate. At the conference, the US Patent Office Director announced that I would be the point person for launching a Houston Inventors Association, which I did. See: www.inventors.org. We subsequently launched a Young Inventors Showcase in 1988. See: www.yiaa.org. I underwrote the original launch of HIA and have financially supported YIS since 1988. A few years ago, the Houston Chronicle honored me as a Houston Hero for my work with inventors. See: https://www.houstonchronicle.
Flash forward to today. I have changed my linkedin profile from tax attorney to Inventor Advocate. See: www.linkedin.com/in/
As a result, I have been invited into a global leadership group advocating the empowerment of individual inventors.
See: www.usinventor.org.
My mission is to advocate, on behalf of US Inventor, the rights of individual inventors.
My campaign has been launched on Tuesday, January, 3rd, 2023. I am seeking 10,000 $10.00 donations into this YIS campaign. See: www.givebutter.com/YIAA.
This campaign will be the trigger to the launch of my “brand”: See: https://gregmicek.wixsite.com/
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2oo5, I acquired the intellectual property rights to FACES software, the world’s leading facial composite program for first responders. We subsequently sued Nintendo for their violation of our IP rights with their WEE application. We lost at the Supreme Court level after investing $11 million dollars. We lost because the courts have established the Alice case as the standard, which protects big tech against the interests of the individual inventor. See: https://docs.google.com/
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
From 1995-2005, I launched four separate public companies that generated, in total, $605 million in shareholder value according to the market cap attained. 1. Hyperdynamics: $50 million. A merger into an existing public shell.
2. JVWEB: $80 million. A spin off from an existing public company, LS Capital
3. Iqbiometrix Inc: $75 million. A merger into JVWEB, after it’s collapse.
4. Wherify: $400million. A merger into Iqbiometrix after its collapse.
I ultimately lost my entire net worth in 2006 when Wherify collapsed. I was set up by Wall Street to take the fall. Basically, wall street destroyed me.
I have been spending the last 16 plus years “putting Humpty Dumpty” back together again.
My “lesson learned” was a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright that I came across a few years back. He said “I can design the greatest building in the world, but, unless a builder comes along, takes the plans off the shelf and builds it, my design is worthless”. That made me realize my failures were entirely due to my need to be the architect and the builder.. I would hire and pay well very talented executives. When the business collapse inevitably happened, The people I hired blamed me, saying “It’s not my fault. I did exactly what you told me to do”.
Now, as I rebuild, I am very careful to “stay in my lane”. I only move forward on a venture when I have trust in a talented builder to take the reigns.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.facialcomposites.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/facialcomposites/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FACESketchSoftware
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/facialcomposites/?viewAsMember=true
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/facesketchsoftware
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/gregjmicek/
- Other: https://facialcomposites.refersion.com/affiliate/registration https://twiends.com/facesketchsoft1 https://facialcomposites.refersion.com/base/channel/affiliate_registration