On life

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:07:44 +0000

We got married young by today’s standards (20 and 22) and had our youngest child when she was barely 21.

Up until we knew we were right for each other in the “rest of our lives way”, she had loose, somewhat ambiguous career ambitions. Mostly out of necessity. But even before we got married, she was sure she wanted to be a full-time Mom.

This required us to start working on my career immediately. Together, we worked hard to build a path that would allow me to be able to support the lifestyle we chose. We knew it would be hard, and she was a bigger driver of my initial success than I was. One of our very first purchases as a couple was a new computer and $300 worth of Study materials for me, when $300 was A LOT of money for us (it was also our very first Amazon purchase, in the spring of 1998). She was the one who pushed for me to get into Linux before anyone had even heard of it. She pushed me to follow my deep love of first principles, even when I had no idea how.

Mom on Michael Doornbos

On life