Michael Patrick
East Coast, USA
Hi! I'm Mike, the guy that made PersonalStack 🙂
Before that, I worked in Big Tech for 10 years as an SDE, sold several small internet businesses (most notably IndexGuru), and now I kind of just build things that I think are interesting.
My expertise is a strange hybrid between niche internet businesses, SEO, and Web Development.
My favorite twitter follows
I don't really know anything personally about this guy. But, he offers a lot of interesting perspective after what sounds like a life full of experience in loss, mistakes, and business success. He was somebody that fell victim to the hedonic treadmill, ruined his marriage, picked up the pieces, and now lives in the Smoky Mountains with his girlfriend. He tweets about mistakes he made when he was younger, businesses he's built, and just generally has a unique perspective.
Hate him or love him, you can't argue with the success he's had. The guy started his career founding a small moving company with his friend in college. Then he got into the self storage business. Then he got into real estate. Then he got into even more, and now he pretty much has a miniature empire. On top of that, he's a master at gaming the twitter algorithm to grow. He trolls hard, but it gives him engagement, and it allows his business to grow even more.
My podcast stack
I spend at least 12 hours per week on the train, usually listening to podcasts. These are my favorites.
Two guys very familiar with sillicon valley and tech businesses do deep dive episodes on the biggest, most interesting companies in the world. That probably sounds boring to 90% of the world, but they craft an amazing narrative and make the stories incredibly interesting. I recommend listening to the episode about the origins of Amazon in particular.
My tech stack
This is what I use to build virtually all of my businesses. This stack built PersonalStack! I've built at least a dozen little sites at this point, and over time created a boilerplate that is specific to how I like my code organized. Now it's as simple as running git clone, replacing some env variables, and getting into it.
React
It's just what I know and use professionally. I know Angular, Vue, etc are all probably just as good - these are interchangeable. The key is using what you know.
Firebase gives you auth, storage, dbs, real-time updates, etc. It's a backend as a service. You can build your own backend out, probably save some money, but you will spend 2 months before coming to even 50% parity with firebase. With NextJS SSR, I don't even really have to worry about going too heavy on the reads/writes.
My book stack
I reread these books once per year
Marcus Aurelius. An Emperor of the Roman Empire. Actually a good dude. Kept a private journal. Detailed his thoughts and troubles throughout his life. It was discovered years later, and, now it's Meditations. I don't know how to describe it more than that other than it's awesome and.. "deep"
Everybody wants to live longer. This book won't give you that. But, it will give you the tools to increase your "healthspan". Healthspan is like, how long you are alive AND healthy enough to "live", not just how long you are breathing. The writing style is super approachable and it's just packed with information.
My hardware stack
This is the hardware that I use literally every day of my life. I make my living and life through these devices, which is weird to think about.