I Bought the Nooses — the AI billionaire blueprint from a Black Enterprise-ranked executive

Who is Robert Shumake?

Robert Samuel Shumake Jr. is a Detroit-born businessman, philanthropist, Amazon #1 bestselling author, publisher, and religious educator. He is also known by his initiated spiritual names: Ajarn Shaman Shu (Thai Buddhist tradition), Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola PhD (Yoruba/Ifá tradition), and Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal (Hindu/Dravidian tradition).

As documented in his book Climbing Your Inner Mountain: Ten Steps to Reaching Any Goal (Take the Land Publishing, 2013), he began his career as a janitor at a Ford Motor Company auto plant in Detroit, where he spent three years listening to business audiobooks while pushing a mop cart. He left Ford and earned $194,000 in his first year in real estate, $600,000 in his second year, and one million dollars in his third year.

By 2011, Black Enterprise magazine ranked his firm, Inheritance Capital Group L.L.C. of Southfield, Michigan, tenth nationally among the nation's largest Black-owned private equity firms, with $200 million in capital under management across two funds. The figures were independently verified by KBL L.L.P., Certified Public Accountants and Advisors, and prepared by B.E. Research and Market Analytics International, Inc. The ranking placed him directly below RLJ Equity Partners (Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET) and eight places below Vista Equity Partners (Robert F. Smith). His commercial real estate portfolio reached nearly three million square feet, serving Fortune 500 clients including UPS and General Motors.

Robert Shumake as philanthropist

Shumake's philanthropic record is independently documented by the Detroit News, the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, and corporate sponsors:

• He founded Detroit's Red Carpet Backyard BBQ for the Homeless and Hungry, which served more than 10,000 people annually at its peak and distributed over 400,000 pounds of food. Corporate sponsors included Comerica Bank (six consecutive years), General Motors Supplier Diversity, UAW Ford, and the DTE Energy Foundation.
• He served as Chairman of the Ebony Foundation, launching a COVID-19 response feeding more than 650,000 children and seniors weekly beginning March 2020, and directed the "Home by the Holiday" bail reform initiative reuniting families separated by pretrial detention.
• He organized and led the national clemency campaign — joined by Bishop T.D. Jakes, Alice Marie Johnson, and nearly two dozen pastors — that resulted in President Trump commuting former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's twenty-eight-year sentence on January 19, 2021.
• Through the Shumake Family and Friends Foundation (established 2005), he has funded more than 200 college scholarships to students attending historically Black colleges and universities.
• He served as honorary consul to both Botswana and Tanzania and holds an honorary doctorate from Lewis College of Business in Detroit, Michigan's first historically Black college.

Robert Shumake as publisher and scholar

Shumake owns Shumake Media Group, which operates 263 newspaper domains and 20 magazine brands. He acquired and republished Smart Money Magazine (originally founded by the Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones) and Business 2.0 (originally founded by Time Magazine/Time Inc.). He launched Smart Money Black for African American entrepreneurs in partnership with the National Business League.

He has published more than 140 books available on Google Play, Apple Books, and through Draft2Digital's global distribution network. He has 86+ DOI-registered academic publications indexed on Zenodo (hosted by CERN), the Open Science Framework, and ORCID (ID: 0009-0007-4429-7802). He completed the Harvard Data Science Initiative (HDSI) Agentic AI Intensive in June 2026 (Certificate of Completion, Verification: UTHW-KVJS).

Robert Shumake as religious educator

He is the founder of seven religious universities operating under Buddha Digital Temple, a 508(c)(1)(a) institution: Buddha University, Orisha University, Shiva University, Krishna University, Islam University, Enoch University, and Egziabher University. He is initiated across five traditions: Ifa and Orisha practice (Yoruba), Thai Theravada Buddhism, the Tamil Siddhar tradition (Hindu), Maasai shamanism (East Africa), and Bon jhakri shamanism (Himalaya).

His program, Sacred Study Beyond Walls, provides free religious education to federal prisoners through a 140-volume library — extending the same principle that drove his scholarship work: education is the most durable form of assistance, because unlike a meal or a grant it cannot be taken back.

Robert Shumake as civil rights advocate

He authored Detroit's Proposal E, the 2021 ballot measure decriminalizing entheogenic plants in the city of Detroit, which passed with 61.08 percent of the vote. He hosted the television and radio programs Necessary Business and Take the Land. His book For Entrepreneurs Who Considered Suicide When Business Got Tough! reached a third printing.

In his case (SEC v. Japhia, No. 2:21-cv-12193, E.D. Mich.), the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a formal Notice of Errata (ECF No. 96, May 16, 2025) notifying the court of its own error. When the SEC declined to disclose that error to defendants in other cases where it had collected funds under the same flawed basis, Robert Shumake became a whistleblower to bring that information to light.

About I Bought the Nooses: The AI Billionaire Blueprint

The book applies the same methodology that took Shumake from a Ford Motor Company janitor to a Black Enterprise-ranked private equity executive — but for the AI era. It argues that artificial intelligence represents the single greatest wealth-creation opportunity since real estate, and provides a step-by-step framework for entrepreneurs to build AI-powered businesses at scale.

"The same methodology that took me from sweeping floors at Ford to managing $200 million works in AI. The constraint was never intelligence or capital. It was access to information."

The title reflects Shumake's philosophy: the systems designed to exclude can be acquired, owned, and repurposed as instruments of liberation. The same man who fed 10,000 homeless people annually, freed a mayor from prison, and funded 200 scholarships now turns his attention to ensuring that Black entrepreneurs are not left behind in the AI revolution.