Mitch Lowe once commanded speaking fees in the tens of thousands.
Medbox woes had nothing to do with Lowe, but the fraud emanating from Medbox was simply a preview of coming attractions for Lowe. If it sounds like Lowe had stories to tell, you are correct. He authored a book called Watch and Learn: How I Turned Hollywood Upside Down with Netflix, Redbox and MoviePass. The subtitle was Lessons in Disruption. The 2022 book can still be found on Amazon.
Lowe found the world wanted to hear from him, and as a speaker at various conferences he turned a nice dollar. “Mitch speaks on the future of leadership, entrepreneurship, company culture and the $2 trillion entertainment industry. Mitch also speaks on strategic product launches—and the critical roles of intuition, perseverance, analytical thinking and love.” Speaker fees ranged from $50,000 to $75,000 and he could be booked via a dozen different speaker entities. Writing this story brings me no joy. There are times when I write an investigative piece, and I think the perpetrator had it coming. They are often driven by avarice or jealousy or revenge. In this case, I have no solid evidence of what drove Lowe to game the system and shortchange both MoviePass customers and investors. But do this kind of work long enough and you develop some instincts as to what drives people to do the things they do. Sometimes I’m right, other times I am mistaken. Here, I don’t know. That said, this is a quote from Lowe’s book about MoviePass’ failure. “It truly was embarrassing and hurtful. I tried as hard as I could, but I should have tried harder. I should have been more thoughtful, and I should have been more strategic. But I’ve got to live with that.” Clearly this was written in hindsight, and Lowe could have been writing to place his narrative in front of the public before the justice system dealt with him. As a recovering Catholic, I do see him sharing his feelings and taking responsibility. No excuses and no sloughing of blame. It isn’t perfect, but maybe that’s the way to end the Mitch Lowe story. Que the music, roll the credits. Bill Meagher is a contributing editor at NorthBay biz magazine. He is also a senior reporter at Manhattan-based digital financial news outlet The Deal. He covers micro and small cap equity, special purposed acquisition vehicles and the SEC. g
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