#publicly traded person
72 posts
- 8/2/25Uncategorized
Privacy and Governance
A proposal for governance of confidential projects, reflecting on the challenges faced after 17 years as a publicly traded person. A formal, time-based policy is suggested to categorize project…
- 2/20/25Votes
McJob: Part 2
Back in September I asked the shareholders if I should just apply to McDonald’s. After a lot of discussion, the vote passed with 72% approval. I applied and I got hired. I was surprised by two things:…
- 2/2/25KmikeyM
KmikeyM Quick Start Guide
Players earn shares, vote on proposals, and engage in strategic discussions within the community. Users can shape Mike Merrill’s life and projects, maximizing their influence through voting and active…
- 1/31/25Hamburger Business Review
AAR: HBR Season 2
We finished season 2 of Hamburger Business Review after a run of eight episodes. There was no direct shareholder vote the new season, but it was related to the McJob vote that passed with 72%…
- 12/12/24Day in the Life
Collect Burgers, Carry Fries
Working in a fast-food restaurant can feel like performing the same repetitive tasks—taking orders, frying fries, wiping surfaces—without leaving a lasting mark. In this post, Van Morrison’s “Chop…
- 11/18/24Hamburger Business Review
CBC ❤️ HBR
Peter Armstrong endorses Hamburger Business Review podcast for its insightful exploration of McDonald’s through engaging case studies and personal experience.
- 9/15/24Votes
McJob
Facing job market challenges, Mike proposes applying for an entry-level position at a hamburger restaurant to regain confidence and financial stability.
- 2/17/24KmikeyM
Playing With Corporate Control
After the success of the Membership Shares proposal let’s look at how corporations use share classes to maintain total control of their companies. After looking at Meta and Alphabet I was curious how…
- 12/21/23Mailing List
The End of Year Spectacular!
This past summer we wrapped up the first season of the Hamburger Business Review podcast, but so much has happened we decided to do a Holiday Special Episode which just came out today. Click here or…
- 9/14/23KmikeyM
What KmikeyM Is For
What is KmikeyM? Over the last 15 years it has evolved into a global community of people who are interested in the intersection of finance and personhood. That is, we recognize the awkward, almost…
- 3/1/23KmikeyM
Payments & Deposits
During Build Week 2023 we created some new ways to buy shares. Shareholders and new users can now buy immediately, skipping the deposit step, and we’ve also added automatic monthly purchases with…
- 4/11/22Health + Fitness
First Doctor Visit in Five Years
I went to the doctor today. It was just the intake appointment for One Medical, which is like a Genius Bar for medicine, and is included in my health plan (membership is normally $199/yr). But even…
- 1/14/22Games
Chess Lab
Like many people I got into chess during the pandemic. I’d played as a kid, I watched Queen’s Gambit, and for a while I even experimented with my own version of what I now know is called fairy chess.…
- 11/11/21Charity
Veteran’s Day Fundraiser
Georgie and I are raising $1000 for This Able Veteran, a service dog organization benefitting United States military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. If you care about pets and…
- 11/1/21Travel
Vienna
The national capital, largest city, and one of nine states of Austria, Vienna is Austria’s most populous city, with about 2.6 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one third of the country’s…
- 4/13/21Votes
Kill Tuesday
Back in 2010 Josh Berezin wrote, “Workplace trends in the Western world include: higher hourly productivity, along with an increasing number of work hours. And to what end? Historically high levels of…
- 4/11/21Book Club
Reimagining Capitalism – I Hate This Book
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Reimagining Capitalism, by Rebecca Henderson. Join the K5M Book Club These are my notes on Chapter 2 but we decided to quit reading this book…
- 4/5/21Book Club
Reimagining Capitalism – Chapter 1
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Reimagining Capitalism, by Rebecca Henderson. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 1: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”…
- 4/1/21Book Club
Reimagining Capitalism – Book Club Plan
My copy of Reimagining Capitalism arrived and I read the first chapter today. To stay on track and read the book in one month we only need to read about 10 pages a day. Looking at when the chapters…
- 3/27/21Book Club
Money – Book Club Notes
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club The Shareholder Book Club met on Saturday afternoon to discuss Money: The True Story of a Made up…
- 3/22/21Book Club
Money – Conclusion
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club the conclusion of Money, The True Story of a Made-Up Thing “Money is a choice, or a set of…
- 3/20/21Book Club
Money – Chapter 15
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club The Radical Dream of Digital Cash Jacob Goldstein starts with an important reminder: “Cash is a…
- 3/6/21Book Club
Money – Chapter 14
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club A Brief History of the Euro (and Why the Dollar Works Better) I thought this chapter was going to…
- 3/3/21Book Club
Money – Chapter 13
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club How Two Guys in a Room Invented a New Kind of Money This chapter seems like it could be a whole…
- 12/12/20Finance
Disclosures
A list of my investments as of December 11th, 2020. I sell shares of myself as part of an experiment in personal capitalism. You can read more about that here. I use various hardware and software…
- 11/23/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 12
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 12: Money is Dead. Long Live Money It’s interesting how banks would close their physical…
- 11/18/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 11
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 11: Just Don’t Call It a Central Bank The name Nicholas Biddle seemed familiar to me……
- 11/16/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 10
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 10: The Gold Standard: A Love Story Before we even get started, just based on the title,…
- 11/16/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 9
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 9: But Really: Can Everybody Can Have More Money? The answer to that questions seems like…
- 11/3/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 8
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 8: Everybody Can Have More Money The concept of measuring economic progress from the…
- 10/21/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 7
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 7: The Invention of Millionaires Man, we jump into this chapter with some of the violent…
- 10/19/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 6
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 6: John Law Gets to Print Money Amsterdam’s problem was too many coins. This is very…
- 10/4/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 5
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 5: Finance as Time Travel: Inventing the Stock Market FINALLY WE’RE GETTING INTO THE GOOD…
- 10/4/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 4
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 4: How to Get Rich with Probability Oh, we’re going to get into math!!?? I’m ready, I’ve…
- 9/24/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 3
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Join the K5M Book Club Part II: The Murderer, The Boy King, and Invention of Capitalism No offense to my former business…
- 9/24/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 2
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein.Join the K5M Book Club Chapter 2 – When We Invented Paper Money, Had an Economic Revolution, Then Tried to Forget the…
- 9/24/20Book Club
Money – Chapter 1
These are my notes for the K5M Book Club on the book Money, by Jacob Goldstein. Author’s Note Jacob’s aunt Janet seems rad. A poet with an MBA feels like an intellectually dangerous person in the most…
- 7/17/20CTRL ALTZ
CTRL ALTZ: Are.na
In March of 2018 I invested $100 into Are.na via their investment campaign on Republic via a Crowd SAFE (Crowdfunding Simple Agreement for Future Equity). The actual investment in WHEN IT CHANGED,…
- 7/4/20Crypto
The World’s Second Publicly Traded Person
I’ve been a publicly traded person since 2008, and I’ve always called myself the “first” because I hoped more would come after. Today, 12 years later, the prophecy has been fulfilled! Alex Masmej has…
- 5/10/20CTRL ALTZ
CTRL ALTZ: HumanIPO
On May 7th 2020 I joined a handful of others selling my time on the HumanIPO marketplace. HumanIPO let’s you invest in the time of other people, holding it as it rises or falls in value, redeeming it…
- 4/8/20KmikeyM
How To KmikeyM
In 2008 I launched a market and sold shares in myself. I also asked my shareholders for advice, and they voted with the power of the shares they had bought, giving me a clear course of action whenever…
- 4/6/20KmikeyM
The Eleven Point Strategy Results
During the first week of the stay-at-home order I was refreshing the news and generally feeling down. Thankfully, by talking with Kathryn and writing my thoughts out I was able to detect my own…
- 4/3/20Finance
Purchase Log During Stay-At-Home Order
🧅40 lb of vidalia onions $99.95 🎁AirPods Pro for Kathryn (gift) $253.28 🚴♂️Bike repair + new tire at Cocos Variety $54.67 ☕Carnelian Coffee $41.00 🍕Take out pizza from Hail Mary $55.00…
- 3/25/20Shareholders
Zoom Checkin
We’re having semi-regular Zoom meetings with shareholders! Install Zoom and here is the login info for the next meeting: Next Meeting:Time: Apr 9, 2020 6:30pm (Pacific Time)…
- 3/24/20KmikeyM
The Publicly Traded Person is Down
I had a Zoom conversation with a few friends last week and we talked about feeling like we have all this time but no energy to do anything. This past weekend I was pretty depressed and it took me a…
- 3/4/20Appearance
A History of KmikeyM Facial Hair
My 12th shareholder question was about growing a mustache. In 2008 I proposed growing a “winter mustache” (something like Rollie Fingers) and it failed with 54% voting no. A close vote but at that…
- 3/1/20Votes
Mike for Bernie
The vote to endorse a candidate in the 2020 presidential election passed with 61% approval. The vote for which candidate to endorse was for Bernie Sanders with 52%. Mar 1, 2020: This morning I donated…
- 1/30/20KmikeyM
How weejee Works
When we built KmikeyM I modeled the voting system on shareholder resolutions, which usually present an argument and allow shareholders to vote “For” or “Against”. One of the differences we’ve…
- 10/20/19Reports
Using Fiverr To Learn About Economics Teaches an Important Lesson: You Get What You Pay For
I hired an “expert in Economics and Finance” to write up an explanation of the work of the recent Nobel Prize for Economics but I only paid $17. The Recent Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics…
- 10/18/19Health + Fitness
13 Drugs I Have Tried and What I Think About Them
A list of the drugs I have tried listed in order of my preference for doing them. As a capitalist I tend to like uppers for productivity, alcohol for negotiations and team building, and psychedelics…
- 9/9/19Finance
Financial Civil Disobedience
PART 1: Onion Futures I bought The Futures by Emily Lambert because I wanted to know more about the Onion Futures Act, a United States law banning the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as…
- 9/1/19Travel
Boston
Boston was transformed from a relatively small and economically stagnant town in 1780 to a bustling seaport and cosmopolitan center with a large and highly mobile population by 1800. By the mid-19th…
- 6/17/19Travel
Toronto
12,500 years ago the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a continental glacier that covered northeastern North America, retreated from the area of present-day Toronto. Soon afterward small groups of Indigenous…
- 5/25/19Travel
Berlin
The capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1417, and later of Brandenburg-Prussia, and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia grew rapidly in the 18th and 19th century, and formed the basis of the…
- 4/28/19Business
Our Incredible Journey
There’s a wise old saying that “All good things must come to an end.” So it’s with a potent mixture of emotions — gratitude, sadness, regret, highs, lows, some middles, joy, grief, incandescent rage,…
- 4/20/19Collaborators
Kriss Knapp: An Artistic Analysis
Kriss Knapp will be providing an artistic analysis for the stock price of some of the most emotional moments in my life. More information coming soon. This project will mostly be happening on…
- 2/3/19Votes
My First Superhero Movie in Two Years
It’s been two years since I’ve seen a superhero movie. The shareholders passed the “No Tights” policy because the Hollywood machine started churning out Marvel and DC properties at a much higher rate,…
- 1/2/19Votes
Coffee Break
I took a break from coffee. I did it because I wanted to see if I could de-acclimate myself enough so that when I started again I could get high, the way I used to feel when I first started drinking…
- 11/21/17Press & Awards
The Man Who Sold Shares of Himself
What drove a man to give 805 investors complete control over his major life decisions? BY ZACHARY CROCKETT Ten years ago, Mike Merrill was at a career crossroads. So, the 30-year-old did what any…
- 10/20/17Press & Awards
Meet The Man Selling Influence Over His Personal Life Decisions
In an age of constant connectivity, it’s not uncommon to crowdsource a decision, asking friends, family and strangers on the internet for advice on mundane choices. But Mike Merrill has taken this…
- 9/26/17Press & Awards
The World’s First Publicly Traded Human Goes NSFW
By Leah Sottile For almost 10 years, Mike Merrill has sold shares of his very existence. Now he and his 600-plus shareholders are hoping an erotica scheme will boost his sagging stock price. If you…
- 8/1/15Crypto
My Attempted Ether Binge
“There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.” Hunter S. Thompson In 2015 I was excited about crypto and I wanted some ether,…
- 4/8/15KmikeyM
💀 How It Ends
One of the big differences in being a publicly traded person vs. a publicly traded company is that while a company can live forever I will die. My younger brother, and shareholder, is the beneficiary…
- 4/8/15KmikeyM
🗳️What is a “Shareholder Vote”
There are two ways that shareholders control me. First is by my stock price. Every morning when I wake up I say, ‘Alexa, play my flash briefing’ which includes the HBS Management tip of the day, the…
- 4/8/15KmikeyM
🎮 How To Play
Itching to have some shares and start voting? There’s no better way to learn than to simply buy some shares and get started! And if you still have unanswered questions this section will help you catch…
- 4/8/15KmikeyM
📜 A Brief History Of Mike
Alaska Born Kenneth Michael Merrill in Fairbanks, Alaska on May 17th, 1977 Raised in Coldfoot, AK, population 10 Started public school: 5th grade in Soldotna, AK Graduated High School in Sitka, AK The…
- 11/20/14Games
Those Kind of Assets
In Dan Hon’s 186th issue of his newsletter, Things That Have Caught My Attention, he finds himself sitting in a suburban Starbucks thinking about the shipping container Starbucks near the Portland…
- 10/18/14Shareholders
A Collective Review of The University
We received an email from author Calvin Wolf asking if we would review his new book The University, in which students sells shares of their future earnings in order to pay for college. We split the…
- 10/8/13Press & Awards
Publicly Traded Person: The Man Who Sold Shares Of Himself
Mike Merrill is a the world’s first publicly traded person; he’s sold shares of himself and makes decisions based on the votes of his shareholders. Produced by Kristofor Lawson.
- 3/29/13KmikeyM
The Critical FAQ
If you’ve ever received media attention you know how the internet will enable you to receive unsolicited critiques from strangers. While many people advise ignoring the comment section I like to…
- 3/28/13Press & Awards
Meet the Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors at $1 a Share
On January 26, 2008, a 30-year-old part-time entrepreneur named Mike Merrill decided to sell himself on the open market. He divided himself into 100,000 shares and set an initial public offering price…
- 5/26/11Business
MKRM
October 12th, 2011 MKRM will be celebrating their next major transition this Friday (October 14th) at 7:30 as we clean out the infamous “Whiskey Shelf” in order to vacate the Brass Works Building. All…
Own a piece of Mike.
Shares trade at kmikeym.com. Shareholders vote on his decisions, and the votes are binding.