Miguel — the original M.I.K.E.
I’ve long loved Mike Judge’s genius — especially how perfectly he captures the idiosyncrasy of the IT business. Silicon Valley is brilliant (watch it), right up there with Office Space. If you’ve worked in tech, particularly from the ’80s on, it hits differently — because it’s true.
I relate to it more than I’d like. The hunt for venture capital. The adversity. The lawsuits. The endless complexity that drags a creator away from the one thing that matters — creating — and buries him in time-wasting nonsense everyone somehow expects him to be great at too. I’ve watched useless CEOs and mediocre tech win on marketing instead of merit, funded well enough to bury anyone who’s actually better, all while “making the world a better place.” My colleagues started calling me Gilfoyle. They even got me the “Hail Satan & drink coffee” mug. They’re not wrong about the temperament — just the satanism.
It all came together one afternoon. I was teaching math to my 9-year-old son, Miguel — Mike — and he was not having it. He loves Marvel, Transformers, computers and cars (like his dad); math just wasn’t sexy enough. So I told him: you love computers? It’s all math. Robots? Computers plus mechanical engineering. Cars? Mostly mechanical engineering — which is maths and physics, and most of physics is… math. You gotta love math, kiddo.
“You’re so like Gilfoyle — the same sarcasm, the same dark view of humanity, and just as brilliant at tech. And you’re building Newton AI! Gilfoyle built Son of Anton… and look what came out of that.”— Ana, my wife, looking at Newton
That same day, Ana looked at Newton — the sovereign AI I’m building (yes, it’s on this site) — and made that call. So I went back and rewatched Mike Judge’s masterpiece. And somewhere in the middle of Richard explaining why middle-out beats Shannon and every other compression method, I had an epiphany: brilliant tech-BS, Mike — should’ve gone with math. And then puzzleCompressor clicked in my still-awake brain.
I jumped out of bed. Ran the tests overnight, just like Richard. And… VOILA. It’s real. And, much like middle-out, it shines on some files.
So both Mikes — and Ana — left their fingerprints on this. I named it MIKE. I’m not German, and English spells it compressor with a C, but Kompression with a K made the homage too good to ignore.
MIKE is born.
I dedicate this work to my beautiful family, but also, particularly to:
— my son Miguel (Mike), who needs to love maths a little more, like dad;
— my wife Ana, for being my babysitter (she’s way better than Tara, Gilfoyle);
— Mike Judge, for the inspired and inspiring work;
— Thomas Middleditch, for his brilliant performance and inspiring relentlessness as Richard Hendricks;
— and the brilliant
Martin Starr, whose Gilfoyle gave screen life to about 90% of me — although, Martin, I think Gilfoyle would like
the Newton page on this same site better… still.