Hey, I'm Mariusz Małek

I'm a self-taught innovator, software engineer, chess player (1800 ELO), and philosopher born in Poland. I wrote my first line of code at 8 years old and haven't stopped building since. I believe in creating value through technology, skipping the academic route to focus on pure innovation and shipping products.

My Story

My journey began in Poland at the age of 8. I grew up in a mining family in one of the poorest cities in the country. While my peers were consuming content, I was obsessed with creating it. I started by building simple games, teaching myself the fundamentals of logic and programming.

By age 12, I built a dedicated website for my school. It wasn't just a static page; it featured profiles of teachers, class schedules, and a fully functional forum for students. It was my first taste of building a digital community platform.

I chose a path less traveled, bypassing formal higher education. I realized early on that in the world of technology, skills and portfolio speak louder than degrees. I define myself as a self-taught innovator—my classroom was the IDE, and my exams were product launches.

One of my proudest achievements is Leadbrowser.com. I identified a gap in the sales intelligence market and built a platform to fill it from scratch. The product gained significant traction, attracted a strategic investor, and today, it serves as a core tool for major players like Sembot and Agencja.com.

I've always been drawn to unconventional engineering challenges. I developed a proprietary system capable of detecting overhead cranes using satellite imagery. This involved advanced computer vision and geospatial data analysis. The technology proved so effective that I successfully exited by selling the solution to a major crane manufacturer.

My interests are diverse. I also designed and built a comprehensive Online Casting Platform, digitizing and streamlining the workflow for agencies and talents.

Today, I continue to look for hard problems to solve, leveraging my experience in AI, data, and full-stack development.

Selected Projects

  • Tree of truth: An AI platform that analyzes global media coverage and cross-references it with interest group agendas. It identifies who benefits most from specific narratives by correlating news with market and political data.
    Tree of truth preview
  • leadbrowser.com: A powerful sales intelligence platform I built from the ground up. It helps businesses find leads effectively. I secured investment for this project, and it is now actively used by Sembot and Agencja.com.
  • xspector.com: An AI-powered system that analyzes satellite imagery to detect overhead cranes. A niche, high-tech solution that I developed and successfully sold to a crane manufacturer. It now also analyzes public tenders and production halls, and even detects indoor cranes (under roofs) by analyzing rental listings in classifieds portals. This solution was developed and successfully sold to a crane manufacturer.

Selected Writing

Read more on Substack.

Opinions & Philosophy

  • Formal education is often a bottleneck for true innovation. You don't need a degree to change the world, just curiosity, persistence, and the ability to learn on your own.
  • The best way to predict the future is to invent it. I believe in building practical tools that solve real-world problems today.
  • Niche AI solutions (like detecting cranes) often hold more concrete value than generic wrappers.