Mikey Taylor once planned to be an attorney. Instead, Taylor became a professional skateboarder, and he later built Commune Capital, a Westlake Village-based real estate investment firm managing $350 million in assets.
- Taylor skipped college for a skateboard. “I always thought I was going to be an attorney,” he says. But a friend’s skateboard changed his trajectory. At 16, he started trading his skating skills for free gear from sponsors, then selling it to other skaters. In a year, those same sponsors were flying him out for his first European tour, launching a professional career.
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Taylor spent a decade ranked among the world’s best. He skated professionally for 14 years and was ranked in the world’s top 10 for about a decade, finishing sixth at the X Games during the final stretch of his career – a result he credits to the sport’s biggest contests arriving late in his run.
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Taylor co-founded a craft brewery before pivoting to real estate. With close friends, he launched San Diego-based Saint Archer Brewing Co. in 2012, building it into one of California’s fastest-growing breweries before selling to MillerCoors in 2015. The experience – raising capital, scaling and exiting – pushed him toward his next venture: Commune, founded to help fellow pro athletes invest for life after their playing days. The firm has since grown beyond athletes to nearly 700 investors, with holdings spanning multifamily apartments, self-storage and a lending portfolio.
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Thousand Oaks is a true family home base. Taylor was born and raised in Thousand Oaks, where his parents live next door to his in-laws – the families still share a wall and a yard. He and his wife met when they were teens; they began dating years later and recently celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary. “We just had our fifth child,” he says.
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Taylor’s also the mayor of Thousand Oaks. He was elected mayor in 2022 after his wife floated the idea of them moving elsewhere, a prospect that spurred him to get involved locally instead. “I love our area,” he says, adding that he approached the campaign “like a startup business.” And he continues to run Commune while serving in office.
