FOUNDUPS®

Michael J. Trout

Michael J. Trout is a life hacker and the innovator/founder of the Open !nnovation Framework (O!F) built on the blockchain, known as simply "the blockchain." The blockchain was invented in 1992 and used in 2007 to launch Maidsafe and in 2008 by Satoshi to launch bitcoin. In 2011, Trout shared the idea of O!F with the founders of Bitcoin magazine, who went on to launch the first O!F as Ethereum in 2013. He thinks of himself as "eSatoshi," the real visionary behind what you call "The Blockchain."

 

 

"Every crisis facing our planet is linked to our business model experiment we call 'Capitalism,' built on a broken piece of code that treats our finite planet as an infinite one -- compounded annual growth rate (CAGR)." He is America's most known #killerhornets hunter, a TV personality and consultant for filming about these terrors in Japan and a passionate American expat on a mission to save our planet with a decentralized business model built on Proof of Benefit, or the Compounded Annual Benefit Rate and will usher in a new capitalism 2.0 model of 'Social Capitalism.' The new model will launch foundups, a kind of open (anyone can join), decentralized (they happen anywhere), autonomous (driven by AI), blockchain startup. These level up and become Decentralized Autonomous Nonprofits Organizations (DANOs) that are self-governing autonomous entities with self-determining boards of directors and managers simply called "delegates."

 

Trout was the expert behind Smithsonian's hit show "Killer Hornets" (2016) who appeared in Animal Planet's hit show, the #Monster Week special "Killer Hornets from Hell." As a college student, he founded and launched his first successful startup, the Southern Shakespeare Festival (1995). In 2000, he was a founder of DigitalArena; he founded EDUIT in 2004 and, in 2008, he launched WikitubeTV, the first website to offer playlists and an auto streaming functionality. Strangely enough, Trout elevator pitched a YouTube executive on a DC metro but, in the excitement, forgot to get the man's business card. Sadly, within 6 months, everything on WikitubeTV was on YouTube. Then, excitingly, in 2009, Trout asked, "Is the startup broken and, if so, how do we fix it?" -- his answer was the O!F.

 

He was raised in Palma De Majorca, Spain and attended a small private prep-school in West Yorkshire, England called Malsis with Simon Beaufoy, the British screen writer most famous for Slum Dog Millionaire, which won a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. He studied acting, among other subjects, under Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf, Lord of the Rings) and the late Alan Rickman (the Harry Potter series) at London's Royal National Theater Acting program (1994) He has a Master of Fine Arts / MBA focus from University of Alabama (1999) and a BA from Florida State University. He went on to found the Southern Shakespeare Festival, one of Florida's largest Arts events in Tallahassee.

Trout lives in rural Japan on the Echizen Coast with his amazing wife and life partner "PK" -- "Player Killer" -- an inside joke for "killing the video gamer in him" -- and his two wonderful boys, Tommy and Mikey. Often, he is in Florida, caring for his 90-something-year young father, who suffers from cancer and a recently-broken shoulder.

He holds a joint MFA/MBA from the University of Alabama that he received while attending on a full scholarship from 1997-99. After graduating, he was hired as the Arts specialist for the National Community Development Services, where he raised over $7m in funding for various nonprofit organizations.