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The Pinball Show: Uprooting Deeproot - Part 1
PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago1 hr 48 min listen
The Pinball Show: Uprooting Deeproot - Part 1 Host: Zach Meny Special Guest: Blueberry Johnson In Part One of The Pinball Show Special Series 'Uprooting Deeproot', Zach Meny speaks with hobbyist...
Highlights
- The SEC charged Robert Mueller and Deep Root with defrauding approximately 300 investors of roughly $58 million between September 2015 and February 2021
- The $58 million in investor funds came from life insurance policy investments, not from direct Deep Root Pinball stock sales (which failed in 2015)
- Deep Root rented a 47,000 square foot facility without verifying it could support manufacturing operations; it lacked adequate electrical power and structural capability
- Deep Root rented a second facility down the street to store machinery that wouldn't fit in the main building, but the forklift Mueller purchased was too large to maneuver in that secondary facility
- Utah Department of Labor fined Deep Root Studios over $1 million for workplace labor violations around 2018, likely related to non-payment of employees
- Deep Root employees were regularly not paid, with management blaming investor pipeline dry-ups and COVID, while Mueller continued hiring during these periods
- Mueller rejected $15 part purchases from engineers but approved $350,000+ machinery purchases that did not function properly
- Mueller spent tens of thousands of dollars on external lighting upgrades during the final week before shutdown while employees remained unpaid
- Deep Root managed inventory and purchasing through Google Sheets without a formal inventory system, with critical information at risk of deletion
- Deep Root spent significant money sponsoring a soccer team (the Scorpions) while the company was financially unstable, and Mueller discussed plans to bring MLS to San Antonio
Notable quotes
“If you're throwing things on a wall what are some of the big reasons... you could answer with one word and say Robert. That wouldn't be an exaggeration.”
“You can have all the money in the world, but if the person in charge at the top doesn't know how to use it, it's going to result in this.”
“Robert came out of the gate saying, I've got money, and not only are we going to make a game, we're going to make more games in one year than all of the pinball companies combined.”
“He wanted to make pinball machines. He just had no fucking idea what he was doing, and he didn't want anyone to tell him how to do it because he's him, and so he knows best.”
“Some employees thought he fancied himself as Elon Musk. and whatever you think of Elon Musk, he's actually, I think, producing stuff. He's a visionary here, this Robert.”
“from at least September 2015 to at least February 2021 robert j muller and deep root both investment advisors defrauded two investment funds they advise and nearly 300 people who invested roughly $58 million in the funds.”
“his priorities, I don't know. I think he was mostly interested in looking great and having a great office and not necessarily listening to anyone telling him what he actually needed to succeed.”
“It was really unfortunate because there are a lot of talented people working there that would try to do what Robert wanted and even had a good level of success, though it wouldn't be the right things to do. And then he'd just come in and just almost like a tornado, change everything.”
“I wanted to say it was all bullshit, but he also legitimately thought it could work... There were a lot of people working a lot of years really hard on making pinball stuff.”
“Down to the last week before the doors shut, Robert had signed a contract... to redo all the external lighting to the cost of tens of thousands of dollars. And this is when people have been furloughed. People keep not getting paid.”
Entities
- Deep Root Pinball· company
- Deep Root Tech· company
- Zidware· company
- The Deep Six Event· event
- Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land (RAZÁ)· game
- This Week in Pinball (TWIP)· media
- Pinside· organization
- SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)· organization
- Utah Department of Labor· organization
- Blueberry Johnson (BJ)· person
- Chris Chandler· person
- Colin McAlpine· person
- Crystal Gimnich· person
- Jeff Patterson· person
- Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)· person
- John Papaduke (J-Pop)· person
- Kerry Hardy· person
- Robert Mueller· person
- Steve Bowden· person
- Zach· person
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