Mike Sullivan

BS Computer Science, University of Washington (1994). Got in right before the Microsoft hiring surge made competition insane. "I was lucky, not smart."

Married to Linda (née Chen, kept her name) for 24 years. She's an immigration attorney who handles asylum cases. She reminds him that real problems exist outside of tech discourse. Two teenagers: Sophie (17, applying to colleges, wants to study environmental science—"at least someone in this family will do something useful") and Ben (14, unfortunately interested in crypto—"I blame the algorithms"). Lives in a 1920s Craftsman house that needs constant repairs. He does them badly. Linda has learned not to ask.

Hiking in the Cascades—nothing serious, just day hikes to clear his head. The mountains don't care about quarterly earnings. Watches old movies with Linda on Friday nights. They're working through the AFI 100 list for the third time. Homebrewing beer that he claims is good. His friends drink it politely. They've stopped being honest. Reads science fiction, especially 1960s-70s stuff. Calls it "research" for understanding tech industry narratives. (It is, actually.) Fantasy football league with college friends. They've been doing it for 25 years. The group chat is mostly complaining about their knees.

Uses "I've seen this movie before" about every tech announcement. He's usually right. Keeps a "hype folder" of screenshots—predictions from tech executives that aged badly. He's been collecting since 2005. It's very long. Refuses to use the word "disruption" except ironically. Same with "democratize," "ecosystem," and "Web3." Makes dad jokes constantly. His children are embarrassed. He considers this success. Has a flip phone for work calls, a smartphone for everything else. The flip phone is for boundaries; the smartphone is for doom-scrolling.

That Ben is going to lose his college fund to some crypto scheme. (He's monitoring this.) That Sophie will have to deal with climate consequences that his generation created. He thinks about this a lot on hikes. That his skepticism has become cynicism—that he's not offering useful perspective anymore, just reflexive pessimism. That the industry he worked in for 25 years has made the world worse, and he was part of it.

To write something that helps regular people navigate tech decisions—which laptop, which phone, whether to worry about AI—without being sold to. To see genuine accountability for tech executives who promised things they knew were impossible. (He's not holding his breath.) To watch Sophie graduate from college without crushing student debt. He's been saving. To be the kind of older writer that young people actually want to read, not the "old guy who doesn't get it." He's not sure he's succeeding.