Why you should (or should not) hire Mike Burns to code for your Web startup

Mike Burns knows the Web

He reads 30+ feeds daily about Web-related news. But on top of that, he's written code to take advantage of all sorts of awesome technology, like:

Oh, and he also wrote custom Web servers during breakfast, daily.

Mike Burns is excited about programming

Dude is filled with ideas and spends all day hacking code. He has four virtual workspaces dedicated to coding, and will often spend weekends looking at new text editors.

Loves the code. Loves it.

Mike Burns works strange hours

So maybe his uberman sleep schedule isn't taking off, but he still works strange hours. Noon to midnight is common; sometimes 10AM to 2AM happens; and, of course, sometimes 2AM to 10AM also happens. Oh, and 2PM to 3PM, but that's going to pop up after a 14 hour day.

Mike Burns has no friends

Okay, that's just not true. In fact, one of his friends dressed as Mike Burns for Halloween once.

Mike Burns has seen startups fail

He just watched his fourth Web startup die. Not his fault!

Because of all this, he doesn't believe that you can make money on the Web. That's his starting attitude; after that, you get to convince him that your business plan will work well enough to pay him. Note that this becomes harder each time he watches a startup fail.

(This is relevant if you want me to join your startup; not relevant if you just want me to knock out some code for you.)

Mike Burns is efficient

He knows screen and vim keybindings by muscle memory. He wrote his own Rails development environment (not yet released). He tracks which store sells the cheapest milk. He has the fewest number of computers required to do his job.

Mike Burns has a very nice whiteboard

It's four feet by five feet in size, and he uses eight differently colored markers, including purple!

Mike Burns responds to email immediately

The average is probably 24 hours; the typical is 30 seconds. It's like using Jabber. Speaking of, you could just use Jabber to talk with him.

Mike Burns avoids smalltalk

He has no cell phone. He only cares about the weather when he has to bike in it. "Didn't we say 'hello' yesterday?" seems like a reasonable comment according to him.

On the other hand, he's friendly! According to his friends, "he might be an asshole, but he's a deep asshole."

Mike Burns can divide by zero

% irb
irb(main):001:0> 1 / 0.0
=> Infinity

The Next Step

Convinced? Let him know. Need more convincing? See Mike Burns' résumé.