Mikeal Rogers, in memoriam
A short note in memory of Mikeal Rogers, may he rest in peace.
Following an aggressive cancer, Mikeal Rogers passed away recently (around the 10th of June 2025).
I first met Mikeal in IRC chat rooms in 2009 or early 2010 when I was starting to contribute to and experiment with Node.js, and he was working on it too. In 2010 we both ran a podcast together about it. Chatting with him and interviewing our guests together was always a pleasure and full of laughs.
Around Christmas of 2010, we finally met up in person in San Francisco, and I remember him helping people at an event, doing interviews and joking with guests, and I especially remember him laughing whilst we did some rather off-beat interviews at the RebelVox christmas party — I still have the unreleased audio from a lot of those!
I also remember him insisting one night that I had to go home with him and sleep in his spare room, because I'd been a silly young adult and drunk way more than I should have at an event. The next morning he introduced me to aeropress coffee, explained that yes, the night before there had indeed been a beer with cinnamon or nutmeg in it, and then he took me to get brunch, including a wonderful mac & cheese at some hipster Oakland café, before sending me back to Mountain View.
He looked out for me when I didn't even realise I needed someone to do that, people have later explained to me just how dangerous it would've been to let me catch a train back to mountain view as drunk as I was. So I'm sincerely grateful to him for his hospitality and kindness.
Whilst life took me away from the US, our paths kept crossing at various events we were both at over the years and sometimes on varying technical pursuits. Most recently I saw him at a local-first or decentralized conference in Berlin a few years ago. By that point I wasn't the young adult he once knew, and I'd changed — well, transitioned — and it was like nothing had changed between us despite it being at least 10 years since I'd seen him last.
Mikeal had a way of bringing people together, lifting them up, and inspiring them. He had a wonderful depth of technical knowledge, and was always happy to explain it — I'm pretty sure I have audio somewhere of him explaining Node.js streams to a room of people, and making those approachable!
Only a two and a half weeks ago I'd learned of his battle with cancer, and now I'm finding myself saying good bye to him forever. May he rest in peace and his memory go on to inspire others.
