Hi there! I'm Steve, and I've been building software for over 25 years. What started as a passion for solving complex problems with code has evolved into creating tools that help people secure their financial futures.
🚀 From Startup Pioneer to Financial Innovation
My journey began in the early days of the internet boom. I was the first employee at Bottomdollar.com, where I helped grow a startup from 10,000 to 6 million monthly visitors in just 14 months—ultimately leading to a $50 million acquisition. Those early days taught me the power of scalable, user-focused software.
💼 Enterprise Excellence
At Guy Carpenter, I led a team of six developers on a multi-million dollar reinsurance application. Through innovative architecture redesign, we eliminated 36,000 lines of code while doubling performance and dramatically improving stability. This experience taught me that elegant solutions often come from simplifying complexity—a principle I've carried into retirement planning.
🎮 Creative Problem Solving
When virtual reality emerged, I dove headfirst into Unity and C# development, creating BuilderBoxVR—a physics sandbox game for the HTC Vive. This project reminded me why I love programming: the ability to bring ideas to life and create experiences that didn't exist before.
📊 The Birth of FourPercentRule.com
As I approached my own retirement planning, I was frustrated by the oversimplified calculators available online. Most tools gave you a single number based on basic assumptions, but retirement planning is far more nuanced. I wanted something that could model real-world scenarios: market volatility, changing spending patterns, tax implications, and the countless variables that affect your financial future.
So I built it myself. What started as a personal project evolved into the comprehensive retirement planning platform you see today. Every feature—from Monte Carlo simulations to the Spending Smile analysis—comes from real challenges I encountered while planning my own retirement.
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