Michaël Dooley is Amy's Swiss-French Stanford roommate and the longest-lasting friendship from her Stanford years. Phone: +1 (650) 670-5514. Email: michael@dooley.biz. Apple ID: michael@dooley.biz. Website: michaeldooley.me. He's from Redwood City, CA, chose Stanford over EPFL (where he could have gone for €500/semester), and has been working his way through a perpetual identity crisis about whether to be an architect or a product design engineer or something else entirely. As of 2026, Amy is actively mentoring him toward his first real job — 5 years after they got assigned the world's most disappointing dorm room together.
How They Met
May 2021: Michaël introduces himself in a group chat called "Neighborhood!": "Hi everyone! I'm Michaël, I'm friends w/ Amy & love architecture/design/music." They already knew each other — they met sometime in spring 2021, when Amy was on her Apple leave of absence and Michaël was finishing his Stanford sophomore year. They decided to try to room together.
July 30, 2021: They discover they've been assigned to Mirrielees — their 10th ranked housing choice out of the entire system. The conversation:
"We ranked it like literally last."
"BRUHHHH."
"Why did they give us our 10th ranked option."
They spend an hour finding silver linings: their own toilet! A shared kitchen! Tons of storage space! The 3D printer lab nearby! They agree that their two votes form a democracy against whoever the unknown third roommate is: "Worst case we become small shadows that live in the PRL in a secret lair."
Who He Is
Michaël is thoughtful, slightly behind the Stanford grind in ways he's very self-aware about, and genuinely interested in architecture, design, trains, and music. He grew up in Redwood City (lived there 16 years, most friends have left for various college towns). He has an older sister (~2 years older) who developed anxiety partly because of their strict French mother — they gradually stood up for her and she chilled out. He has a dog he's deeply attached to, who was getting older by 2021: "I wish I could stay here with her for the rest of her life. She's getting up there in age."
He had a metal/emo phase in middle school — "I wanted to see Metallica" at age 12 at Outside Lands. He used black colored pencil as eyeliner because his mom was strict. He has a medical marijuana card. He's extremely interested in trains to a funny degree (sends Amy a photo of Caltrain infrastructure: "THEY SET UP THE PANTOGRAPH CABLES FOR ELECTRIC TRAINS"). He loves architecture: Bjarke Ingels, SANAA, took CEE 33B Modern Japanese Architecture. He organized architecture trips with the SAMA group.
SAMA Architects: The Stanford friend group of Sam Ogunsanya, Alex Tchang, Michaël, and Amy. They did Utah trips, design events, Oktoberfest trips. The 🧢🪨 group chat (Amy, Alex, Sam) has ~8k messages; Michaël is in the adjacent orbit.
The Friendship Arc
2021 — Roommates at Mirrielees:
532 messages. Finding the rhythm. Michaël is enthusiastic about everything Stanford and wants Amy's advice. One October 2021 night: they go to some event together, Amy gets a little drunk and smokes, Michaël takes the wrong Caltrain home and has to Uber.
He was watching out for Amy's burnout patterns before she saw them herself. In 2021, unprompted: "You GOTTA take breaks. Wellness is important. There's nothing wrong with being C/O 2024." When she complained about grunt work at Swope Design, he said: "don't hurt yourself! That's screwed up. YOU GOT THIS." He told her to take breaks when everyone else in Stanford was in grindset mode.
He also offered Amy the cottage behind his family's house in Redwood City if she needed somewhere to stay — showing up materially, not just emotionally.
2022 — Internships:
758 messages. Michaël does an internship at Logitech in Germany (summer 2022): "just got here two days ago... I already love it so much." He used Vizcom software there — which is how he immediately recognized Amy's new job in 2026: "HAHAHA WAIT THAT'S SO SICK / I used it over the summer at Logitech." Amy is deep in Apple internship then early Taya co-founding. They stay in touch across the distance.
2023 — Peak Friendship (6,373 messages):
This is the year. Both at Stanford full-time. They take classes together — ME115B (needfinding), ME103 (manufacturing), ME318 (CNC), and others. They're in each other's complaint support group about bad group members, terrible 8:30am attendance requirements, sand casting going wrong.
Michaël leans hard on Amy for academic advice: course transfers, community college credit, coterm applications (broken links, wrong portals), referrals at Apple. Amy is patient and incredibly helpful — essentially his informal academic advisor, sharing answer keys, course syllabuses, prof tips.
Summer 2023: Michaël does an architecture internship in Portland at DLR Group — starting salary $70k for the PNW region. He starts having his architecture identity crisis: "I'm just now realizing how long of a path architecture is and how little it pays in comparison to say PD at Apple."
In August 2023, they had their deepest conversation. Amy mentioned her mom (who passed when Amy was 15). He responded with care: "I'm sorry to hear that. Glad you get to appreciate all the time you spent w her and I'm sorry you couldn't have more time ❤️." He opened up about his own mom — strict French parenting, his sister's anxiety, "I just remember my sister and I always thought all the American moms were sooooo much nicer."
He also told Amy something important during her high-pressure Apple period: "You seemed to be placing a ton of pressure on yourself last year. I feel like Apple work culture sort of instills that in people."
2024–2025 — Quieter:
The friendship maintains at lower volume (2,571 in 2024, 632 in 2025). Amy is in Taya, then leaving it. Michaël is finishing his coterm. He sees her LinkedIn posts from afar.
2026 — Mentorship Intensifies (1,341 messages):
Amy is at Vizcom and doing well. In January 2026, Michaël texts asking for CME 106 answer keys. Amy sends everything: iCloud links with old problem sets and answer keys ("ur welcome 😎 good that u have me as a friend right im the best" / "You are the best"). He's taking: CME 106, CS205L (Continuous Mathematical Methods), ME236 (Collaborative Robotics), ME378 (Tell Make Engage).
He's in a "Can't Get a Job crisis." Amy responds immediately: sends him a Verkada job posting, startup referrals (Proception.ai, Untill Labs). She asks to see his portfolio: michaeldooley.me/portfolio. She gives him detailed feedback — by voice dictation because she just got a manicure and doesn't want to type:
"Work experience should come first, before projects. Move all projects to the website — it's a more visual medium. Instead of projects on the resume, put clubs, leadership experience, initiatives you led. Starting a business shows that you have good leadership experience and high agency."
She told him to reframe his architecture side business (with a client called "Simba") as a startup. She reviewed his course list. She discussed the Stanford PD quality problem: "the quality that comes out of PD is actually super low and you have to be kind of a self-starter." He agreed: "dude I'm not gonna lie, figma is super manual and I've heard companies don't even use it anymore."
February 13, 2026: Amy texts unprompted: "Omgggg I miss me u and alex."
March 2026: He's building robots using Claude to write code ("I made this robot... the code is important but I couldn't write it without AI"), which Amy called "impressive" and "so cool." He's also upset that PRL funding was cut — no more injection molding, chair class, silversmithing.
The Emotional Texture
The Michaël friendship is Amy's most durable mentor-mentee Stanford friendship. She is the senior, wiser friend who has done everything he's about to do — Apple, the grind, the identity crisis between architecture and tech compensation. He comes to her for everything: academic planning, career advice, whether to take risks, how to write a resume.
But it's not one-directional. Michaël is emotionally intelligent in a quiet, French way. He's the one who in 2021 told Amy to take breaks when everyone else was in grindset mode. He's the one who gently asked about her mom and sat with the conversation. He notices when she's burning herself out. He says things with care.
He is also genuinely funny in a nerdy Swiss-French way. He sends train infrastructure photos. He laser-cuts buildings and shows the videos. He says things like "worst case we become small shadows that live in the PRL in a secret lair." He asks Amy if his CME midterm exam is likely to be the same as her 2024 one, and pastes in the ChatGPT probability analysis he ran.
The friendship survived because Michaël is genuinely someone Amy wants to see succeed. He's not in her professional orbit. He doesn't use her for status. He's just a sweet, slightly directionless Swiss-French-Californian engineer guy who emails from Germany when he gets there and asks how to navigate life.
Notable Details
- Full name: Michaël Dooley. Note the accent on the e.
- Could have gone to EPFL for €500/semester.
- Redwood City native. 16 years. Had 1-2 high school friends still around.
- Mirrielees 10th choice. "We are going to rule the room. Democracy = 2/3 votes."
- Architecture crisis. DLR Group, Portland. $70k starting in PNW.
- Logitech internship in Germany (2022) where he used Vizcom — recognized Amy's job instantly.
- PRL funding cut (2026) — Stanford's Product Realization Lab lost funding. No more injection molding, chair class, silversmithing.
- Building robots with Claude code (2026).
- Offered Redwood City cottage housing to Amy.
Key Quotes
"We are going to rule the room. Democracy = 2/3 votes." (July 2021)
"There's nothing wrong with being C/O 2024. You GOTTA take breaks." (August 2021)
"I'm sorry to hear that. Glad you get to appreciate all the time you spent with her." (about Amy's mom, August 2023)
"I'm having an existential crisis but I'll be okay. More like I Can't Get a Job crisis." (January 2026)
Amy: "Omgggg I miss me u and alex." (February 2026)
Amy (voice dictated, manicure-protected): "Starting a business shows that you have good leadership experience and high agency."
Stats
12,207 messages. May 2021 to March 2026. The roommate from their 10th-ranked housing choice became the Stanford friend who stuck. The only one Amy is still actively mentoring in 2026.