From volunteering in the Peace Corps to running RCA Records International, high-tech entrepreneur Gregory Fischbach has forged a multi-pronged career path.
After Gregory Fischbach(B.S., ’63) graduated from SF State and earned his law degree from University of California, Hastings, he served in the Peace Corps in Santiago, Chile. Then he worked for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Then he headed up a law firm that represented major 1970s recording artists like Crosby, Stills and Nash. Then he took a top position at pioneering video game company Activision, and later founded video game developer and publisher Acclaim Entertainment.
“Let’s just say it’s been a career that is characterized by the fork in the road,” says Fischbach, who has been named 2016 SF State Alumnus of the Year. “I believe in the fork.”
Today, he is the founder and chairman of Rabbit, a free online service and app that allows people to watch streaming videos while video chatting with friends or to create social “screencasts” that bring together coworkers or family members to experience an event online. Rabbit was one of Fast Company magazine’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Video in 2015.
“You’re not supposed to start a company when you’re my age,” says Fischbach. “But it teaches you, and you’re forced to learn. This is the first company I’ve been involved with where the product is not in a box.”
Attention deficit disorder and dyslexia made school difficult for him, and he credits his mother with helping him plow through assignments during his time at Oakland High School. “I can remember sitting at the breakfast room table with her … and she would spend the time to work on them with me,” he says. At SF State, he was a “pretty mediocre student” and his best memories of the University revolve around his friends and his wife, who he met in a biology class. “But I don’t think I could’ve had the career I had without the college education,” he says. “It was the foundation for everything that followed.”
One of the things that followed was a successful law career representing musicians like Merle Haggard and Emmylou Harris, along with managing The Steve Miller Band. Working with Miller was inspiring and intense, says Fischbach, and he treasures the memories of that time. But “when another musician walked in after him and asked if I could help him do the same thing, the answer was ‘No,’ because I wasn’t going to learn anything new,” he explains.
After his time at Acclaim, the fork in the road even led to a brief retirement. “I bought a couple planes and learned to play golf, and I thought as long as I had enough money, it would be OK,” Fischbach says. “But I came to the conclusion that work was more fun for me.”
Although Rabbit has his full attention these days, Fischbach doesn’t rule out the possibility of launching another company at some point.
“When you start a business, that’s very creative, because you’re confronted with problems and issues that you haven’t seen before,” he says. “Curiosity is my driver here, and willingness to accept change. The past is the past, but tomorrow is much more important.”