My father Ove once said, “Why do people wait until the obituaries to say all the nice things?”

I didn’t wait.

He was a headhunter for 30 years. So was I. We’ve spent our careers answering one question: what drives a person’s decisions?

For his 90th birthday, I promised him something no one gets — his own algorithm. Not just his life story — the system behind it. His Algorithmic Biography.

I applied my model for assessment and spent five years asking him the same 200+ questions. Checking every record I could find — school papers, job references, psychological tests, colleague accounts. All to answer one question: what pattern runs this man?

I found 12 key patterns. They never changed. Not once. Across nine decades.

I wasn’t surprised. I’ve read people for over 30 years. 5,000 executives placed. The patterns are always there. Most people just never look.

When my father is gone, his patterns don’t have to be. The way he thinks, decides, and operates — his algorithm — extracted, preserved, and running. As a digital system that continues.

Repeatable patterns show up in everyone’s lives. My father has his. You have yours. There is no right or wrong — only what is repeated.

I documented everything. The book’s 21 chapters tell the story from childhood to current. The Extraction Report shows the science. Both free.

— Christian Schoyen