Michael Fertik, Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist

Today, my guest is Michael Fertik, Managing Director and Founder of Heroic Ventures and the Executive Chairman and Founder of Reputation.com. He has also been the Founder and CEO of b4.ai, WaveShift, Sightglass Vision, among others. Heroic Ventures is a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused almost exclusively on first-money and formation investing. A futurist with more than ten patents, Michael is credited with pioneering the field of online reputation management (ORM) and lauded as the world’s leading cyberthinker in digital privacy and reputation.

Michael was named Entrepreneur of the Year by TechAmerica, an annual award given to an individual who embodies the entrepreneurial spirit that made the U.S. technology sector a global leader.

He was a founding member of the World Economic Forum Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet, a recipient of the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award.

Michael is an industry commentator with guest columns in Harvard Business Review, Reuters, Inc.com and Newsweek. Michael frequently appears on national and international television and radio, including the BBC, Good Morning America, Today Show, Dr. Phil, CBS Early Show, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg, and MSNBC. He is the co-author of two non-fiction books, Wild West 2.0 (2010), and New York Times best seller, The Reputation Economy (2015). Michael founded his first Internet company while at Harvard College. He received his JD from Harvard Law School. He now teaches at Harvard Law School.