There’s more to Mike Amoia than the insect tattoos covering most of his body, or the scorpion tattoos covering most of his neck and the back of his skull before stretching out over his right eye socket. Mike is an entrepreneur, angel investor, Emmy award-winning producer, and he also holds the Guinness Book World Record for the most insect tattoos on a human body: 864 at the time of the award, and counting. After being misdiagnosed with leukemia as a child and forced to endure painful treatments, he learned the truth, ran away from home, struggled to survive, dropped a bad tab of acid…and started his second life. Discovering that not only did he have a knack for freelance assistant editing with companies like Sony and VH1, but that he had no problem outworking the competition, he quickly rose through an editing job and then cofounded a production and postproduction company of his own, called Vidiots. Over the years, Vidiots grew to include a 20,000 square foot facility in New York’s West Village housing an agency representing editors and directors. Since then he’s dabbled in angel investing for companies including Rumble boxing, Rhone Clothing and Van Leuwen vegan ice cream. He cofounded MIBE music, a publishing company with over 100,000 music cues and songwriters worldwide. Their credits include Beyoncé Pepsi commercial, CBS sports, Bravo's Million Dollar Listing, History Channel's Counting Cars, and the NBA Finals opener for ESPN. He also launched Switchblade Entertainment, a worldwide production company signed with Creative Artists Agency, specializing in original, mostly unscripted content.
And he was featured by FORBES for the launch of Indelible, an NFT company bridging the gap between tattoo culture and Web3, while raising money for worthy causes. While the deals keep coming, Mike’s starting to get philosophical at age 50. He’s not showing all his cards, but on today’s podcast, we discuss why he sees other people’s misperceptions of him as his superpower. We look at those childhood leukemia treatments, consider how the experience molded his self-perception…and go back to the day when he realized that something wasn’t right. Mike explains the acid trip when he visualized insects crawling all over his body, and how that was a turning point that set the tone for the rest of his life. The insects on his body, hands, and face are more than just art, he says. They’re armor. Mike is, at heart, still just an introverted kid from Queens New York who is always learning, always looking for the angle, always sizing people up, and trying to figure out his place in it all. But now he’s got a seat at the big table, and he’s making the most of it…while still trying to figure out how to make his peace, really, with it all.
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