About Junius Advisory
“Treating people well and acting with integrity isn’t an altruistic platitude, it's a good business strategy”
— Mike Rustici, Founder
Mike is a serial entrepreneur who founded, grew and sold two software companies. Both Rustici Software (link) and Watershed (link) are widely recognized for their outstanding culture and innovative technological approaches.
Mike has an uncanny ability to simplify complex concepts and cut right to the essence of difficult decisions. He knows how to ask the right hard questions and how to debate complex issues to surface truth. He often has unconventional, but well-considered views that come from a willingness to constantly question the status quo and explore pragmatic alternatives. When Mike shares a new idea, the most common reaction is “I never thought of it like that, but that makes total sense.”
Mike believes that business is people and people are business. Treating people well and acting with integrity isn’t an altruistic platitude, it's a good business strategy.
After a two-year sabbatical to process a simultaneous divorce and cancer diagnosis, Mike started Junius to give back to the entrepreneurial community that has given him so much.
Bold. Pragmatic.
Honest. Kind.
Why Junius?
Joon-ĭ-us [FPO]
Junius Rusticus was a prominent Stoic philosopher during Roman times. He caught my attention when I realized that Rusticus is the Latin root of my last name Rustici.
Junius Rusticus is known to Stoics as Marcus Aurelius’ mentor and inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was the first philosopher king and likely Rome’s best, kindest and most just emperor. Through Junius, I hope to mentor and inspire entrepreneurs to achieve great things in honorable ways.
Junius Rusticus also appears in Christian theology as the Roman official who sentenced an early Christian named Justin Martyr to death for refusing to worship Roman gods. While widely regarded to be a man of exceptional character, this one deed taints Rusticus’s legacy. Fairly or not, the world (and the market) will often judge us by our worst deeds. As entrepreneurs, we must always be at our best, both personally and professionally.
Martyr’s sentence was a rather unremarkable event in ancient Rome. Junius Rusticus was just a government official upholding the law of the time. Yet when viewed through the lens of contemporary American values, executing a Christian for his religious beliefs seems rather barbaric.
Times change, conditions change, values change. As entrepreneurs we ignore change at our peril and capitalize on change to create opportunity. We must constantly scrutinize what we consider routine. We must constantly search for advances that make the impossible practical. Changing circumstances are our achilles heel and our golden goose.