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Comment by zavulon | Hacker News Reader

I haven't had my tea yet this morning, so I'm a little slow.. This isn't real, right? There's no way this is real.. Right?

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It is real, there was also this piece[1] in The Atlantic earlier this month, and Mike's on the Today show this morning.

I'm Doug Stewart[2] (mentioned in the interactive "Who Owns Mike Merrill?" graph). If anyone has questions, I'll try my best.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/putting-... [2]: http://www.kmikeym.com/users/137

Just curious, do you really make more money as a photographer than as a developer? Or is one firmly work and the other firmly hobby?

Or perhaps both are work?

He wouldn't be the first person in history to work two jobs when one paid more than the other.

Exactly/thank you. They're complimentary, and like most things in life, one single thing can't really satisfy all our creative hopes/needs.

I have, but the one that pays best tends to be the one I'm more interested in (read: show more effort in). I'm more accustomed to photography but development is a lot more fun these days. If someone wanted to be only a wedding photographer there's almost no reason to not have a packed summer (demand seems _much_ higher than supply).

It's a wonderfully quirky and entertaining spoof/joke, and all of the people involved seem to be having a lot of fun keeping it running all these years. My question is simple; how to you expect this to end?

I don't really see an end point or ultimate goal. I see it as a place to throw some spare bucks to pat a pal on the back for projects I think they're doing well in. I don't have an intention to ever 'cash out' or see a return, but it's nice to see others invest for their own reasons and push the share price to where they hope.

I'm glad you see the inherent humor/fun in it.

A reminder for others: shareholders don't dictate what's tabled. We can only vote on what's proposed, the implication being that K5M is fine with either outcome.

Why does this surprise you? Human behavior isn't rational. This specific example isn't that weird. What it boils down is that it is an elaborate freak show for promotion (both the medium transmitting this and the object that is the "freak").

He was just on the Today show. Unfortunately, this is real.

It looks like the price is slowly going up over months, but I would have expected a spike with a Today show appearance. Maybe he didn't plug his shares well enough? Or needs a buy button right on the first page instead of buried in after login or something? His voters really need to control his actions better to capitalize on PR like this to grow the stock. ;/

It is, I know some people who own shares and saw the website when it first started; I think it's ridiculous.

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