I represent a small PR firm that works with startup companies. I talked with Joshua on skype for about an hour and we went over what I believed we could do for his company. He asked for our fee and I told him $3,000, he agreed and asked for me to send the contract but that he might have a couple revisions.
I sent the contract and he sent it back to me several days later: The only thing that was changed was the pricing. He insisted that he wanted to pay us in 3 installements of $1000 every 10 days, I informed him that I could agree to that but that it made me nervous that he didn't mention this over email or phone. He informed me that it was his way of protecting his business because he hadn't worked with us before and because we're a small firm.
Within a week we had achieved 4 articles for them and up until that point he had been very communicative. He was suppose to make the second payment on the 10th of Feb. I called both Josh and his partner on the 10th to see what the plan was for payment. No response. I emailed them both. No response. I followed up several times with them over the course of the next week and I got no response.
Finally, I sent an email explaining that I was disappointed in the situation and that I would appreciate if they would simply call me and work it out instead of ignoring me. No response.
I met up with one of my journalist friends for lunch and during the course of the meal we talked about the situation and my friend offered to write an article if he didn't comply. Seeing little other choice I agreed. My friend sent out an email to him and informed him of the pending article. Lo and Behold all of a sudden we get a reply.
I'm writing this because he tried to con me again by saying that he'll pay me after his campaign is over but not if an article comes out. I told him he had 24 hours to pay what he owed, he refused.
Unforuantely we live in a world were people are constantly trying to take advantage of others.
TLDR: Mycroft and Joshua are unprofessional scammers who will take advantage of anyone they can to save a couple dollars. Do NOT work with them.
Integrity, Ethics and Honesty is Absent in the CEO
Honest is the first chapter in the book of wisdom-Thomas Jefferson.
If a CEO does not conduct their personal business with integrity and ethical behavior, will his company be any different? It appears not, from what happened above.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, or moral uprightness. It is colloquially a personal choice to hold oneself to consistent moral and ethical standards. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions.
A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
I had a similar experience with Joshua as the former reviewer stated. Joshua purchased a $1,190,00 home adjacent to my 5 acre estate and sent his 8 & 11 yr old daughters to "invite" the neighbor to come have tea w/their parents. Who sends their daughters to a complete strangers 5 acres? This was a ploy to whine about trees on my property blocking his sunset view and he asked if he could "top" the trees. I said "well maybe w/supervision". The next day I even let him use my car to drive 3 mi to the post office to get a package because their nanny had the rental car w/kids & I graciously took his trash to the dump because they didn't have trash service yet. Unbeknownst to me, he had ordered a tree company to cut my trees and didn't tell me. 6 men showed up unannounced 2 days after our 1st neighborly meeting. I told the crew what I expected and they ignored me, broke my water line, broke my citrus tree, broke my fence and destroyed my beautiful trees. When I would not allow the crew back, because they were obviously working a different agenda than the "serial" list of items Joshua and I had in a written agreement, Joshua reneged on the deal and refused to pay for the clean up and destruction left behind.
If you notice "serial" is a favorite Joshua Montgomery word. He uses it many times in his blogs. The company blog states: "CEO of Mycroft A.I., serial entrepreneur and one of the few entrepreneurs in the United States to build a gigabit fiber network from scratch. Joshua brings more than 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to the Mycroft team."
Serial User, Serial Jerk, or Serial Psychopath may better describe the manners and ways of Joshua Montgomery.
He does not believe he must stick to his "serial" agreements.
Is it investor money being use to impress, bribe and sway unsuspecting people to these serial unethical tactics?
Mycroft AI, Inc. Reviews
I represent a small PR firm that works with startup companies. I talked with Joshua on skype for about an hour and we went over what I believed we could do for his company. He asked for our fee and I told him $3,000, he agreed and asked for me to send the contract but that he might have a couple revisions.
I sent the contract and he sent it back to me several days later: The only thing that was changed was the pricing. He insisted that he wanted to pay us in 3 installements of $1000 every 10 days, I informed him that I could agree to that but that it made me nervous that he didn't mention this over email or phone. He informed me that it was his way of protecting his business because he hadn't worked with us before and because we're a small firm.
Within a week we had achieved 4 articles for them and up until that point he had been very communicative. He was suppose to make the second payment on the 10th of Feb. I called both Josh and his partner on the 10th to see what the plan was for payment. No response. I emailed them both. No response. I followed up several times with them over the course of the next week and I got no response.
Finally, I sent an email explaining that I was disappointed in the situation and that I would appreciate if they would simply call me and work it out instead of ignoring me. No response.
I met up with one of my journalist friends for lunch and during the course of the meal we talked about the situation and my friend offered to write an article if he didn't comply. Seeing little other choice I agreed. My friend sent out an email to him and informed him of the pending article. Lo and Behold all of a sudden we get a reply.
I'm writing this because he tried to con me again by saying that he'll pay me after his campaign is over but not if an article comes out. I told him he had 24 hours to pay what he owed, he refused.
Unforuantely we live in a world were people are constantly trying to take advantage of others.
TLDR: Mycroft and Joshua are unprofessional scammers who will take advantage of anyone they can to save a couple dollars. Do NOT work with them.
Integrity, Ethics and Honesty is Absent in the CEO
Honest is the first chapter in the book of wisdom-Thomas Jefferson.
If a CEO does not conduct their personal business with integrity and ethical behavior, will his company be any different? It appears not, from what happened above.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, or moral uprightness. It is colloquially a personal choice to hold oneself to consistent moral and ethical standards. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions.
A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
I had a similar experience with Joshua as the former reviewer stated. Joshua purchased a $1,190,00 home adjacent to my 5 acre estate and sent his 8 & 11 yr old daughters to "invite" the neighbor to come have tea w/their parents. Who sends their daughters to a complete strangers 5 acres? This was a ploy to whine about trees on my property blocking his sunset view and he asked if he could "top" the trees. I said "well maybe w/supervision". The next day I even let him use my car to drive 3 mi to the post office to get a package because their nanny had the rental car w/kids & I graciously took his trash to the dump because they didn't have trash service yet. Unbeknownst to me, he had ordered a tree company to cut my trees and didn't tell me. 6 men showed up unannounced 2 days after our 1st neighborly meeting. I told the crew what I expected and they ignored me, broke my water line, broke my citrus tree, broke my fence and destroyed my beautiful trees. When I would not allow the crew back, because they were obviously working a different agenda than the "serial" list of items Joshua and I had in a written agreement, Joshua reneged on the deal and refused to pay for the clean up and destruction left behind.
If you notice "serial" is a favorite Joshua Montgomery word. He uses it many times in his blogs. The company blog states: "CEO of Mycroft A.I., serial entrepreneur and one of the few entrepreneurs in the United States to build a gigabit fiber network from scratch. Joshua brings more than 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to the Mycroft team."
Serial User, Serial Jerk, or Serial Psychopath may better describe the manners and ways of Joshua Montgomery.
He does not believe he must stick to his "serial" agreements.
Is it investor money being use to impress, bribe and sway unsuspecting people to these serial unethical tactics?
Most likely.
Same Bad Experience
CEO, Joshua Montgomery, JM recently did the same thing to me. Reneged on a written contract. He is not ethical and does not have integrity. Stay away!
I agree "we live in a world where people are constantly trying to take advantage of others".
JM feels, because he has scammed millions out of investors, he can attempt to throw his weight around to impress and con. Claims he makes $1200/hour.
Check out the company SEC filings. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001643021
If he makes $1200/hour and they claim gross revenue of $298,227 (Jan 19 filing) then they are going deep in the hole every month.
Financial Statement: https://d19j0qt0x55bap.cloudfront.net/production/startups/mycroft-ai/documents/financial_statements/Mycroft_2016___2017_Reviewed_Financials_-_Revised__1_.pdf
The Debt end of 2017 was $993,907. Payroll expense was $779,910.16.
And you would be thinking of investing in this?