Matthew's Homepage

About Me

Matthew Dangerfield

Hi! I’m Matthew Dangerfield, a recent Applied Math grad from BYU and co-founder of PeakSend AI, an AI appointment setter.

I grew up loving math and dreaming of inventing things. In high school, I wanted to build a physical robot, but couldn’t afford the parts. So I bought a cheap used laptop and decided to learn software development to fund my robot. Long story short, the robot never happened, but I fell in love with the tight feedback loop of writing code and seeing something appear on my screen. Eventually I got a part-time frontend development job, and spent a few years gradually branching out into full-stack roles at a few different startups.

In college, I chose to study Applied Math after meeting some recent grads who had really cool ML jobs with just a bachelor’s degree. I loved getting to go in-depth on mathematics, and it forever changed the way I think. Everything’s a vector space now! I also enjoyed getting to spend hours wrestling with really hard problems. It’s deeply satisfying to discover an elegant solution to a previously inpenetrable problem.

At the same time, I always had some sort of side project going, you can see a full record here. One of my favorite memories is the first time I made money on the internet. It blew my mind that someone paid me for the project I’d come up with! I still love the feeling of working with users on products I’ve helped build. I hope to build many things that create real value for real people, and I’m always up for collaborating with others who feel the same.

Top 5

Software

  1. Aider - AI-assisted programming
  2. Davinci Resolve - tons of professional video editing features for free
  3. Pixelmator Pro - powerful and performant image editing
  4. Zed - a modern editor with a great VIM mode
  5. 1Password - putting all 2FA codes in here is so convenient

Books

  1. The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson.
  2. Little Women, by Louissa May Alcott.
  3. Diaspora, by Greg Egan.
  4. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari.
  5. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L’Engle.

Short Stories

  1. Leaf by Niggle, by J. R. R. Tolkien.
  2. The Last Question, by Isaac Asimov.
  3. Understand, by Ted Chiang.
  4. A Strange Report from the Church Archives, by Steven Peck.
  5. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.

Films

  1. The Tree of Life, 2011, Terrence Malick.
  2. The Truman Show, 1998, Peter Weir.
  3. Forrest Gump, 1994, Robert Zemeckis.
  4. 12 Angry Men, 1957, Sidney Lumet.
  5. Inception, 2010, Christopher Nolan.