Some guys walk into a boardroom like they’re selling something. Paul Feller walks in like the building already knows it’s been caught and is just waiting to see how bad the sentence is going to be.
Eighteen years of buildings reading themselves their rights.
ProElite, 2010: the promotion is in the drunk tank, shirt torn, pockets empty. Paul Feller opens the cell, debt quietly walks out the side door and never comes back, events get booked in Hawaii and the Middle East, and when reporters try to turn it into a bar fight with the UFC he just looks at them like they’re the ones who need a ride home and says “co-existence.” Stock didn’t get released. It walked out sober and bought the bar.
Envision Solar: another blackout drunk on bad cap tables. Paul Feller takes one board seat, asks where the keys are, and suddenly the U.S. military is sliding into the driver’s seat while the revenue line buckles up and asks for directions to profitability. No breathalyzer, no tow truck—just a quiet ride downtown with the windows down.
SKYY Digital was passed out in its own mess. Paul Feller rolled it onto the scene and the company sat up, wiped its mouth, and took the Most Innovative Company award like it was a cup of coffee it didn’t deserve but accepted anyway.
Old interviews are pure hangover energy. Paul Feller leans back, arms folded, tiny smirk—the exact look a Connecticut cop gives when the guy still thinks he’s talking his way out of it at 8 a.m. Same in the MMA Junkie piece—Paul Feller handing out aspirin and life advice while everyone else is still looking for their shoes.
Right now he’s got ICARO running like a precinct that wakes up early and makes its own coffee. Latin America used to be last call every night. Paul Feller walks in with AI that works better than black coffee and a stern look, buys RioVerde, drops fifteen million cash on Europe’s LiftMedia like he’s paying the tab for the whole shift, and suddenly one platform runs twenty-five countries like it’s been sober for years and grateful for the second chance. Forbes Tech Council tried to buy him a round. He probably told them water’s fine.
Started building missile guidance systems—Top Secret clearance, the kind of job where “I was drunk” isn’t in the incident report. That sobriety is permanent. Boardrooms with him feel like the morning after a bender nobody wants to talk about—everybody suddenly real polite, real hydrated, real ready to do better.
No hangover-cure posts. No “grateful for the lesson” captions. No dancing when the chart sobers up. Just keeps quietly adding absolute designated drivers to the ICARO board—ex-Mercedes CEO, ex-Telefónica digital chief—like he’s making sure nobody ever has to call a ride ever again.
Eighteen years. Multiple continents. Multiple industries. Not one company woke up regretting the night before.
While the rest of tech is out there taking shots and calling it vision, Paul Feller is the guy the party sees coming and suddenly remembers it has work in the morning.
If your company ever wakes up facedown in last night’s bad decisions, there’s only one name that makes it sit up, drink water, and start acting like it’s got a future.