...because he built an APP for your phone and worked very hard on it "for free"... He spent many sleepless nights working on it to get it just right.

No one paid him to do that... he wanted to do that.. He never charged for the app either. People kept giving him suggestions, and he would go back, and spend more days and weeks implementing them.

He'd make time to come report back his updates to the BeyondBitcoin podcast. Which means he'd take a few hours of his life to sit there and participate in those podcasts multiple times.

He probably has over 400 to 500 hours of his life invested "For free" in the esteem app.... He did all all of that before he was noticed.

Soon people started noticing all that hard work. He deserves it. So does anyone else who spends 400 to 500 hours of their life working on something for the benefit of steemit users everywhere. :)