I am sad to report one of the true geniuses in the marketing business has left us and gone to his reward.

Mike is not super famous, but he’s the smartest Search Engine Optimization guy I personally ever met. Ken McCarthy recommended to me (Ken’s picks are always sterling) and Mike came to my Roundtable group a couple of years ago and blew our minds.

Mike had a degree in mathematics and a degree in theology. If you understand something of both of those fields and combine them together, the result of that was an ability to think multi-dimensionally on a scale that is truly rare.

Mike came to our Roundtable meeting and explained what Google is really all about.

Mike understood that not only is Google’s search algorithm multi-dimensional, he knew for a fact that the number of dimensions was 200+. Mike had advised clients as sophisticated as the U.S. Patent and Trademark office on the legitimacy of search-related patents. He explained why you could never reverse-engineer the algorithm, but that you could use your imagination in 200 dimensional space to much better understand what Google was after – so as to get a result far better and longer-lasating than what the rank and file were able to achieve.

I immediately alerted my SEO guy Donovan Kovar to Mike’s work. Donovan was immediately impressed and began using Mike’s software right away.

At dinner several of us enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion with Mike about mathematics, theology, ethics, origins, evolution and God. In fact the next day I popped an email to one of my friends, an eminent biologist, musing about the potential application of Mike’s multi-dimensional thinking to the field of genetics.

Mike was a man of deep faith (a common trait among raging geniuses) and an appetite for the truly deep questions. I’ve always liked the word “polymath,” which is defined as “a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.”

The word doesn’t apply to very many people, but it surely applied to Mike. Mike helped me with a couple of my personal projects and always responded with insights above and beyond the normal.

Mike is survived by his wife Rebekah, his children Abigail, Michaela, Michael, and Jonathan.

Jedi Mike, we’re going to miss your huge smile and your deep insights. Rest in peace, brother.

Perry Marshall

P.S. If you knew Mike, don’t comment here, but post your comment on this page set up by his family, which also has information on the wake and memorial services in Apex North Carolina.

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.