About Bubbleproof
Bubbleproof is a creative team satirizing Silicon Valley culture… from within.
Bubbleproof.tv Sizzle reel
Since late 2015 I've been working for two Silicon Valley tech insiders named Michael Fertik and David Cowan on a series of satirical documentaries. The series centers on two slightly more awful Silicon Valley tech insiders (also named Michael Fertik and David Cowan) who hire me to shoot flattering documentaries about them.
Michael and David's motivation for producing this series has been a topic of much speculation in Silicon Valley. Is it ego? Innovation? Ego-vation, perhaps? As closely as I work with them even I can't say for certain. Of course, I know why I do it: they pay me. Not much and mostly in Theranos shares, but still, how many people get paid to make fun of their employer?
Our collaboration has produced two award-winning short films, Femto-Management and CI: A TEDD Talkumentary and Bubbleproof, an original series which premiered at TechCrunch Disrupt, widely known among a very small number of people as the Sundance of startup showcases. Our latest, and possibly most unnecessary project, is The Bubble Report, a short form talk show reimagined for the universal basic income era.
- Martin Sweeney | writer-Director-editor
The Bubbleproof team on the set of their forthcoming talk show The Bubble Report.
Leadership
LEAD, CO-WRITER
Michael Fertik
PLAYED BY MICHAEL FERTIK
Michael Fertik founded Reputation.com with the belief that people and businesses have the right to control and protect their online reputation and privacy. He is credited with pioneering the field of online reputation management and generally recognized as the leading expert in digital privacy and reputation.
Fertik is an industry commentator with guest columns in Harvard Business Review, Reuters, Inc.com and Newsweek. He frequently appears on national and international television and radio, including the BBC, Good Morning America, Today Show, Dr. Phil, CBS Early Show, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg, and MSNBC. He is the co-author of two books, Wild West 2.0 (2010), and New York Times best seller, The Reputation Economy (2015).
Michael is a NYT bestselling author, and his fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals.
LEAD, CO-WRITER
David Cowan
PLAYED BY DAVID COWAN
As a venture capitalist with Bessemer Venture Partners in Silicon Valley, David Cowan has led early stage investments in Twitch, LinkedIn, Skybox, Twilio, Blue Nile, and 20 other startups that went IPO. Cowan also co-founded three cybersecurity companies: VeriSign, Good Technology (fka Visto), and Defense.Net. The Forbes Midas List of the top venture capitalists has included Cowan 13 times, ranking him as high as #6.
Cowan wrote, directed, and performed in the acapella stage musical Lies in the Attic, which enjoyed a commercially successful run in San Jose in early 2016. He earned his BS (in C.S. and math) and his MBA degrees from Harvard University.
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER, CO-WRITER
Martin Sweeney
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Martin Sweeney is a San Francisco-based director, screenwriter and commercial creative director.
He has sold numerous feature screenplays to major studios, worked with comedy royalty Todd Phillips and Ben Stiller and has had at least one awkward conversation with George Lucas.
His satirical short films FemtoManagement: A Micromentary and CI: A TEDD Talkumentary have played dozens of film festivals in four countries across the globe.
Martin’s first big film industry break came in 1998 when optioned a script co-written with his sister Marjorie to indie film producing legend Ben Barenholtz. The project’s financing fell apart after a launch party on a yacht in Cannes that Martin was not invited to, an injustice he has been trying to set right for almost 20 years.