Life experiences, family, and reflections
I grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin, where I earned the nickname “Mr. Bill” breaking Apple II copy protection as a teenager. At age 16, I attended the 1984 Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College, where talks by Daniel Dennett, Roger Schank, and Herbert Simon planted seeds about artificial intelligence that would shape my thinking for the next four decades.
That Apple II didn’t come from a place of family wealth. We weren’t even close to rich. My father cashed in a life insurance policy to buy it for me. It turned out to be the best investment he could have made — the proximate cause of everything I’ve built since. Forty years later, I’m still repaying it.
I studied mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BS, 1989), where five professors left a lasting mark: Berent Enç, Terry Penner, Anatole Beck, Mary Ellen Rudin, and Hiroaki Terao. The mathematical rigor I absorbed there remains the foundation of everything I build.
I was also a weather-obsessed kid. A couple of blocks from our house sat the Wausau Downtown Airport, and I spent whole summer days inside its Flight Service Station — the air-conditioned room where pilots got their weather briefings and filed flight plans — until the FAA men and women who worked there became friends. That same boyhood curiosity, four decades later, is what finally solved the mystery of the towers on Radar Road.
My father, Louis “Bud” Heyman (1920–2000), played thirteen seasons of professional minor-league baseball as a catcher (1946–1958), primarily in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, finishing with the Kansas City Athletics. He faced Willie Mays at the plate in the 1950 Interstate League — Mays remembered him in his 1988 autobiography. He caught Babe Ruth in a barnstorming Old-Timers’ game. He caught Satchel Paige. He played in Havana during the Cuban Revolution and in Little Rock during the 1957 desegregation crisis. He was offered a major-league contract by the Phillies for the 1951 season — then tore his rotator cuff in a ski-jumping fall and never got another call-up.
He was inducted into the Central Wisconsin Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010. Some of who I am traces directly to him: a working-class Wisconsin kid who outworked his circumstances, made the move that gave his son a tool that changed everything, and never made the show himself. The Apple II was his life insurance policy. The rest is what I’m doing with it.
I'm blessed to be part of a blended family of six. My wife Michelle and I found each other after both experiencing profound loss — a connection our neighbors called “beshert” (meant to be). Together, we've created a loving home for our four children: Cassie (technical librarian), Blake (mobile/web developer), Robert (industrial automation), and Ashley (public policy student).
We split our time between Phoenix, Arizona in the winters and Minneapolis, Minnesota in the summers — the best of both worlds.
In 2011, I was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma and given only a few months to live. Through experimental immunotherapy at the National Institutes of Health, I became one of the fortunate 25% who responded completely to treatment. I've now been cancer-free for over 14 years.
During this same period, I was caring for my first wife Jodi as she battled breast cancer and later leukemia. She passed away in March 2013. The experience of fighting for my own life while caring for hers transformed my perspective on what truly matters.
After surviving cancer, I committed to physical transformation. I returned to Life Time Fitness in 2013, adopted a ketogenic diet (losing 40 pounds), and built a daily yoga practice five times a week. In 2017, I completed a 365-mile bike ride across Israel — a journey that proved to me what was possible after everything I'd been through.
Beyond technology, I'm drawn to philosophy, ancient languages, and the intersection of timeless wisdom with modern life. I read Camus and Pascal in the original French and am learning Greek — driven by a love of places like Nafplio, where ancient history comes alive. Russian is next.
I'm an avid reader shaped by Hofstadter's “Gödel, Escher, Bach,” Dretske's “Knowledge and the Flow of Information,” and Hofstadter's “Metamagical Themas.” I enjoy photography, AI-generated art, cultural travel, fantasy baseball, and digital preservation.
My worldview is a Stoic-existentialist blend: Emerson's self-reliance, Camus' embrace of the absurd, Seneca's discipline, and Chesterton's Fence (understand why something exists before tearing it down). Grounded in Jewish faith with threads of Kabbalah and yoga woven through.
Cancer taught me that time is our most precious resource. After 40 years in technology, I'm focused on building things that matter — tools that serve humanity, education that preserves wisdom, and a legacy that honors both those we've lost and those who will come after us.
My guiding principle remains Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”