Michael was born in Miami, Florida in 1996 to Bolivian father Miguel Sayman and Peruvian mother Maria Cristina Gálvez Sayman. A large part of his life is defined by effects the Great Recession had on his childhood. In 2010, when Sayman was 13 years old, his parents lost their jobs and were forced to foreclose their home. His mother considered having them move back to Peru. Sayman insisted they remain in the United States, and that he would pay for everything. Throughout his adolescence, he provided for his family via the money he earned publishing apps on the App Store. In an interview with People regarding his teenage years, Sayman said there were moments in which he did not know how his family would be able to afford to buy food or pay the electricity bill. In 2014, as tech companies were flying Sayman out to tour their campuses and speak at conferences, he still owed tuition to Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, the private high school he attended. The school refused to give him his graduation certificate due to his inability to pay the outstanding balance he owed. In August 2018, Sayman publicly came out as gay in an interview with People en Español. He said in the interview that he chose to come out because he believed that "this will be able to help other Latinos who go through the same situation."
Early Career: 2010–14
Sayman taught himself programming through tutorials he found via Google.
4 Snaps
In 2013, Sayman developed an app named “4 Snaps”, a turn-based game which gave the user a choice of words, allowed them to take four pictures based on the word they picked, and then sent over to the opponent player to guess what the word was, based on the pictures taken. He released the app on August 8, 2013 and by the year after, the app had over one million downloads. 4 Snaps was received with mostly positive reviews. It peaked at #1 on the word games chart with a few million users.
Facebook: 2014–17
Sayman joined Facebook when he was 18. Mentored by Mark Zuckerberg, Sayman played a role within the company as the social network’s "go-to teen". Over the course of 3 years at the company, he worked on developing products for the teenage demographic. He helped the social-media company understand how his generation uses technology, advising on experimental products for teens and helping executives understand trends.
Lifestage
At age 19, he launched Lifestage, a new standalone, video-centric social app for high school students while working at Facebook. The app was largely focused around the teenage demographic; anyone 22 or older is locked into only being able to see their own profile. When users signed up, with no need for a Facebook account, they would select their high school, and then see the video profiles from people at their school or ones nearby. Sayman released the app on August 19, 2016 for iOS devices in the United States and name is 4Snaps. The app was met with criticism regarding its privacy model and compared to Snapchat and Yik Yak. Less than 12 months later, Facebook pulled Lifestage from the app store and shut it down on August 4, 2017.
Google: 2017–present
On August 28, 2017, it was reported that he was leaving Facebook to work at Google on its Google 'Assistant' project. Before Google, Facebook was the only place Sayman had ever worked. Sayman is currently building a social-gaming startup within Google as part of the company's effort to create offspring companies from within the internet-search conglomerate.
